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American Occupation 



THE 

LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

AND THE EXPLORATION 

EARLY HISTORY AND 

BUILDING OF 

THE WEST 

BY 

RIPLEY HITCHCOCK 



With IllustraHorii< 
and Maps 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

STbe ^tbenacum press 

1903 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 26 1903 

. Copyright Entry 
CLASS «- XXc. No, 
' *tOPY B 



Copyright, 1903 
By RIPLEY HITCHCOCK 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






TO 
M. W. H. 



INTRODUCTION 

In the year 1803 the United States bought 
from France the greater part of our country 
lymg between the Mississippi River and the 
Rocky Mountains. The area acquired con- 
tained nearly a million square miles. This 
/'Louisiana Purchase" has been called an 
event " worthy to rank with the Declara- 
tion of Independence and the formation of 
the Constitution." 

The price of the empire which we gained in 
1803 was $15,000,000. This seems a large 
amount even in this day of the easy handling 
of millions, but the taxable wealth of the Lou- 
isiana territory to-day is more than four hun- 
dred times the purchase money. In whole or 
in part fourteen states and territories have 
been formed in the area which was bought, 
and there are over fifteen million people within 
its borders. 



vi INTRODUCTION 

These are impressive facts and they invite 
questions as to what the Louisiana territory 
was and how we happened to secure it. The 
answers tell a curious story, full of happen- 
ings so strange that they have the quality of 
romance. In the sixteenth century the Span- 
iards, first of white men to penetrate Louisi- 
ana, might have occupied and perhaps have 
held it for at least two centuries and a half, 
but they were lured away by the gold and sil- 
ver of Mexico and South America. Later there 
were disasters near home, and always there was 
their own incapacity in colonization. 

Next came the French, descending from the 
north and holding Louisiana until their power 
on this continent was broken at the fall of 
Quebec in 1759. Four years later France 
ceded Louisiana to Spain. After our Revolu- 
tion England yielded us a boundary on the 
Great Lakes, the Mississippi, and the thirty- 
first degree. She promised also the free navi- 
gation of the Mississippi. But this promise 
Spain, holding the river's mouth, refused to 
sanction, and as American pioneers pressed 



INTRODUCTION vii 

westward across the Alleghenies and sought 
the natural route to a market afforded by the 
water ways, this refusal became a matter of 
supreme moment. 

There followed a critical period in the his- 
tory of the West. In 1790 the possibility of 
a war between England and Spain led Pitt to 
consider a seizure of New Orleans. A little 
later France, always regretting the loss of Lou- 
isiana, employed the French minister Genet 
to use the discontent of our frontiersmen as 
a means of wresting Louisiana and Florida 
from Spain. Later still France's efforts to 
regain Louisiana became successful under the 
powerful guidance of Napoleon. His plans 
were laid for occupation. They were checked 
by the negro revolt in San Domingo and the 
prospect of war with England. 

Meantime the West was ablaze, and Presi- 
dent Jefferson sent Monroe as commissioner 
to Paris to secure New Orleans and the 
Floridas and make clear the way to the sea. 
The instructions of Monroe and Livingston 
were limited to a strip of seacoast. But 



viii INTEODUCTIOK 

Napoleon changed his mind. He offered 
them the whole vast area of Louisiana, and 
thus suddenly and unexpectedly we acquired 
Louisiana from France even before possession 
had formally passed to France from Spain. 

What was bought was for the most part 
a wilderness. How this wilderness was ex- 
plored is told in the second part of this 
volume in an abridged version of the journals 
of Lewis and Clark, the classical explorers of 
the West. 

This outline of the first great American 
expedition into the far West and across the 
continent is followed by sketches of the jour- 
neys of Pike, Colton, Hunt, Wyeth, Prince 
Maximilian of Wied, Bonneville, Fremont, 
and others, — soldiers, traders, scientists, 
makers of the old trails, and pioneers of 
the greatest of river routes, the Missouri- 
Mississippi. This third division of the story 
naturally includes the American fur trade, as 
well as the trails and water routes of the 
West. These explorers, trappers, and traders 
made the early American history of Louisiana, 



INTKODUCTION Ix 

but long before them were the eras of Span- 
iards like Goronado,and Frenchmen like Father 
Marquette, La Salle, and the Yerendryes. 

The waning of the fur trade's supremacy 
toward the middle of the nineteenth century 
was followed by discoveries of mineral wealth, 
by the pressure of settlement, by railroad 
building, by the cattle industry, and by other 
factors in the earlier building of the West 
which are sketched in the fourth part of this 
narrative. With the later political organiza- 
tion and giant growth of the old Louisiana 
-territory within comparatively recent years 
this history deals only in a summary of facts. 

Since the purpose of this book is to afford 
a continuous and very simple narrative, it 
has not seemed necessary or wise to enter at 
length into the diplomatic and political his- 
tory of the purchase of Louisiana. That story 
may be read in the first and second volumes 
of Henry Adams's "History of the United 
States of America " and in McMaster's " His- 
tory of the People of the United States." The 
French side of the history is emphasized in 



X INTRODUCTION 

Dr. J. K. Hosmer s popular '^ History of the 
Louisiana Purchase." Many other references 
will be found throughout this volume. 

There seems to be no single book which 
tells the story of the West succinctly and 
includes the work of the Spanish and French 
pioneers, and also accounts of the various 
phases of American exploration and of the 
typical figures and aspects of the Western 
formative periods. It is hoped that this vol- 
ume, in spite of its modest character, may 
afford a certain comprehensiveness which will 
be of convenience and of value to students of 
the earlier history of the West between the 
Mississippi and the mountains. 

I desire to express my sense of obligation 

to my friends, Professor John Bach McMaster 

and George Parker Winship, Esq., for their 

kindness in reading portions of the proofs. 

I wish also to acknowledge the aid of Mr. 

Percy Waller of the Lenox Library, New 

York, in reading the proofs and in preparing 

the index. 

R. H. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
DISCOVERY AND ACQUISITION 

TliE SPANISH AND FRENCH PERIODS AND THE 
PURCHASE 

PAGE 

Chapter I. The Spanish Discoveries .... 3 

What the Louisiana Purchase was. Early Spanish 
explorers. Discovery of the Mississippi. Pineda, 
'Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, De Soto, and Docarapo. 
The Spaniards first in the field. Their weakness in 
colonization. 

Chapter II. The French in Louisiana ... 21 

Nicollet's early expeditions. Saint Lusson claims 
the West for France. Marquette and Joliet explore 
the upper Mississippi. La Salle descends to the 
mouth. The French claim to Louisiana. Tonty and 
other pioneers. The founders of New Orleans. The 
search for a way to the western ocean. Le Sueur 
and other explorers. The Verendryes see the Rocky 
Mountains. 

xi 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter III. The French in the Eighteenth 

Century 34 

The founding of New Orleans. Extent of French 
possessions. The beginnings of St, Louis. The gate- 
way of Louisiana. Downfall of French power. 
Louisiana ceded to Spain. American and English 
explorations. Oregon not included in Louisiana. 

Chapter IV. The American Westward Move- 
ment 45 

Advancing beyond the Alleghenies. Settlement 
rather than exploration or exploitation. Experiences 
of the pioneers. Their way to the sea blocked by 
Spanish control of the mouth of the Mississippi. 
How the Spaniards ruled New Orleans. 

Chapter V, Louisiana's Critical Period . . 54 

France tries to regain the West. Genet's intrigues. 
Attitude of England and Spain. Napoleon's designs. • 
Talleyrand's plans for a colonial empire. Louisiana 
ceded to France. Napoleon's plans checked by Tous- 
saint's rebellion in San Domingo. 

Chapter VI. Louisiana an Active Issue . . 64 

The East slow to see the facts. Foresight of Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, and Hamilton. A critical period. 
Spanish exactions. The river closed. Popular agita- 
tion. The West ready for war. Jefferson resolves to 
buy New Orleans and the Floridas, Monroe appointed 
commissioner. Livingston's work in Paris. Talley- 
rand's startling proposition. How Napoleon made his 
purpose known. A family quarrel in a bath-room. 



0O:nTE1sTS xiii 

PAGE 

Chapter VII. The Purchase arranged ... 76 
Closing the bargain. The terms of payment. What 
was bought. Questions as to West Florida. The news 
in the United States. Federalist opposition. Debates 
over the right to buy and rule foreign territory. The 
treaty ratified. Provisions for government. 

Chapter VIII. Transfer to the United States 86 

Louisiana still in Spain's hands. Delivery to France. 
Cession by France to the United States. A country 
without government. Congress gives the President 
power. Importance of the precedents. The territory 
divided. A last foreign invasion. 



PART II 
THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 
Chapter IX. Exploring Louisiana .... 



An unknown interior. Jefferson's early interest 
in exploration. Ledyard's vain attempt. Jefferson 
selects Lewis and Clark. Who they were. Their in- 
structions. The uncertainty as to their route. . 

Chapter X. Preparing for the Journey . . 106 

An uninformed Spaniard. A company of picked 
men. Some curious supplies. 'J'he journal of the 
expedition. 

Chapter XI. Starting for the "Wilderness . Ill 

Trappers and Indians. Across Missouri. The first 
sight of buffalo. Turning northward. A council with 
the Indians near Council Bluffs. An odd way of fish- 
ing. A country full of game. 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter XII. In South Dakota 120 

A haunted mountain. Among the Sioux. A curious 
fraternity. Some new animals. Trouble with the 
Tetons. The first meeting with the grizzly bear. 
Reaching the Arikara Indians. The approach of cold 
weather. 

Chapter XIII. At the Mandan Villages . . 128 

The winter camp. Hunting the buffalo. The journey 
onward. Finding the Yellowstone River. Adventures 
with grizzly bears. Hunting in Montana. 

Chapter XIV. Across Montana 137 

Discovery of the Musselshell. The first glimpse of 
the Rockies. A buffalo charges the camp. A narrow 
escape. At the Great Falls of the Missouri. A difficult 
portage. Reaching the Three Forks of the Missouri. 
In an unknown country. 

Chapter XV. Through the Rockies to the 

Pacific 146 

Ascending the Jefferson. Reaching the Great Divide. 
Some friendly Indians. Sacajawea meets old acquaint- 
ances. Hardships and disappointments. Struggling 
across the mountains. Among the Nez Percys. On 
toward tlie sea. Passing the cataracts of the Columbia. 
The first glimpse of the, sea. 

Chapter XVI. On the Pacific Slope . . . .159 

The winter camp. Peculiarities of the Clatsop Indians. 
A scarcity of supplies. Turning homeward. Sur- 
mounting the cascades. Journeying by land. Trouble- 
some Indians. Living on dog fiesh. A search for their 
liorses. Indian cooking. Suffering of the explorers. 



COjS TENTS XV 

PAGE 

Chapter XVII. Across the Mountains . . . 171 

A rough mountain road. Dividing the party. An 
adventure with a grizzly. Fighting with Indians. An 
accident to Captain Lewis. His indomitable courage. 
Passing the Great Falls of the Missouri. Lewis over- 
takes Captain Clark. 

Chapter XVIII. Captain Clark's Adventures 178 

Crossing the Yellowstone. The last glimpse of the 
Rockies. Buffalo and bears. Reaching the Missouri. 
Attacked by mosquitoes. Pryor loses the horses. 
Bitten by a wolf. The whole party reunited. 

Chapter XIX. On the Way Home 185 

At the Mandan villages again. Big White accom- 
panies the explorers. Colter remains in the wilder- 
ness. His subsequent discovery of Yellowstone Park. 
Parting with the faithful squaw. Descending the 
river. The arrival at St. Louis. The news in Wash- 
ington. The later life of Lewis and Clark. 



PART III 
THE EXPLORATION OF THE WEST 

Chapter XX. Pike's Explorations 199 

Ascending the Mississippi. A second expedition 
westward. Hostile Spanish influence. Into Colorado. 
The first glimpse of Pike's Peak. On the upper 
Arkansas. Disappointment and privation. In Spanish 
territory. Captured by the Spaniards. Pike's return 
and death. 



xvi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter XXI. Routes of Exploration . . . 208 

The great water ways. Importance of the Missouri. 
The Santa F6, Overland, and Oregon trails. The fur 
trade the chief industry. Its effect on exploration. 

Chapter XXII. Typical Pathfinders . . . 226 

Trade seeking the Northwest. Hunt and the " over- 
land Astorians." Ashley and Wyeth. Bonneville's 
journeys. Explorations by Fremont. 



PART IV 
THE BUILDINCx OF THE WEST 

Chapter XXIH. A Formative Period . . . 241 

Influences of the westward movement. A time of 
expansion. Development of the Mississippi Valley. 
Influences upon upper Louisiana. Types of the 
middle period. The soldier's work in the West. 
Labors of missionaries. Whitman's journey and its 
real purpose. 

Chapter XXIV. The Coming of Industries . 2.55 
Tlie search for mineral wealth. Louisiana ignored 
for California. Later developments. The day of the 
"pony express." The great cattle industry. Open- 
ing of the interior by the first transcontinental railroad. 

Chapter XXV. Permanent Occupation . . . 270 
The Free Soil issue. Kansas and Nebraska. Dis- 
tribution of public lands. Louisiana in the Civil 
Wai-. A glance at later development. Political and 
economic consequence of the old Louisiana Purchase. 



CONTENTS xvii 

PAGE 

Appendix I 287 

Treaty of Purchase between the United States and 
the French Republic. 

A Convention between the United States of America 

and the French Republic 293 

Appendix II. The Louisiana Purchase of To- 

Day 296 

Its vast area. Statistical summary of the states and 
territories formed from the Purchase. Fifteen mil- 
lions of people. Wealth four hundred times the pur- 
chase money. The empire which we gained. 

Louisiana ... * 296 

Arkansas 300 

Colorado 303 

Indian Territory 307 

Iowa 309 

Kansas 312 

Minnesota 316 

Missouri 320 

Montana 323 

Nebraska 325 

North Dakota 328 

Oklahoma 330 

South Dakota 333 

Wyoming 335 

Index 339 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 

PAGE 

American Occupation Frontispiece 

Expansion Map of the United States Facing 3 

" Hunch-backed Cow " Facing 8 

Pueblo of the Zuni Indians Facing 10 

De Soto's First View of the Mississippi Kiver 13 

De Soto's Expedition (1539-1542) 15 

Old Spanish Gateway at St. Augustine 17 

Spanish Explorations 19 

La Salle 23 

Louis XIV, King of France 25 

Autograph of Jolliet 26 

Father Marquette (from Trentenove's statue in the Capitol 

at Washington) Facing 20 

La Salle at the Mouth of the Mississippi 28 

Autograph of Tonty 29 

Map of the Verendryes' Route Facing 32 

Autograph of Le Moyne d' Iberville 35 

Autograph of Bienville 36 

Autograph of John Law 36 

New Orleans in 1719 37 

The Royal Flag of France 39 

Montcalm 40 

George Rogers Clark 46 

George Rogers Clark's Expedition to capture Vinceimos 

in 1779 Facing 46 

Anthony Wayne 47 

A Flatboat on the Ohio 50 

xix 



XX ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 

PAGE 

Autograph of Genet S^ 

Autograph of Talleyrand ^7 

Autograph of Toussaint L'Ouverture 61 

Alexander Hamilton 65 

Livingston's Autograph,,^ . ., ^ 67 

James Monroe . . . '\ . - . . . 68 

Napoleon as First Consul . Facing 72 

Thomas Jefferson 81 

Wilkinson's Autograph 88 

The Cabildo, or City Hall Facing 88 

Claiborne's Autograph 89 

Andrew Jackson riding along the Lines after the Battle of 

New Orleans 92 

Bad Lands of Dakota 98 

Meriwether Lewis (from the drawing by St. Merain) Facing 100 

William Clark Facing 104 

Washington One Hundred Years ago 107 

French Fort at Saint Louis Facing 108 

In the Days of the Buffalo Hunter 115 

Totem of the Sioux 121 

Calumet, or Pipe of Peace 122 

Stone Hatchet 124 

Nature's Fortifications (from the plan drawn by Lewis and 

Clark) Facing 126 

A Mandan Hut 128 

Mandan Indians using "Bull Boats" made of Buffalo 

Hide Facing 130 

Interior of Deserted Mandan Ilut 131 

Map of Lewis and Clark Pass 148 

Mouth of the Columbia River (from the plan drawn by 

Lewis and Clark) Facing 160 

Multnomah Falls Facing 164 

Meriwether Lewis Facing 174 

A Mandan Chief Facing 186 

Pike's Peak Trail at Minnehaha Falls . . . . . . .205 



ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS xxi 

PAGE 

Zebulou M. Pike Facing 206 

Emigrant Train crossing the Plains 209 

Pike's Peak from Pike's Peak Avenue, Colorado Springs 

Facing 210 

Whitman's Journey to save his Mission, 252 

Sutter's Mill Facing 256 

Indians attacking the " Overland Mail " 258 

A "Pony Express" Rider 260 

Completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad Facing 268 



LOUISIANA 



Part I 
DISCOVERY AND ACQUISITION 

THE SPANISH AND FRENCH PERIODS 

AND 

THE PURCHASE 



CHAPTER I 
THE SPANISH DISCOVERERS 

What the Louisiana Purchase was. Early Spanish explorers. 
Discovery of the Mississippi. Pineda, Cabeza de Vaca, 
Coronado, De Soto, and Docampo. The Spaniards first in 
the field. Their weakness in colonization. 

At the opening of the year 1803 the terri- 
tory of the United States was bounded on 
the west by the Mississippi River.^ In April 
of that year a treaty was signed in Paris by 
which nearly a million square miles west of 
the Mississippi, stretching from the mouth of 
the river to British America, was purchased 
from France for $15,000,000, and the total 
area of our country was more than doubled. 
This great event is known in history as the 

^ On the south the boundary was the thirty-first parallel 
of latitude from the Mississippi to the Apalachicola, down 
the middle of that river to the Flint, thence to the head of 
St. Marys River, and down the latter to the sea. 

3 



4 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Louisiana Purchase. By this treaty, which 
was signed by Robert R. Livingston and James 
Monroe representing the United States, and 
Barbe-Marbois representing the Republic of 
France, Napoleon Bonaparte — then the First 
Consul of France and afterward Emperor — 
ceded to the United States the territory 
which now contains Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South 
Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, 
a portion of Colorado, and a part of Idaho, 
Oklahoma, and Indian Territory.^ 

1 Much attention has been given by historians to the ques- 
tion whether or not Texas was or should have been included 
in the Louisiana Purchase. Henry Adams and Professor 
Edward Channing are among the more conspicuous advo- 
cates of Texas as a part of Louisiana, and Professor A. C. 
McLaughlin declares that France "had good ground for 
claiming the Texas country perhaps even to the Rio Grande." 
Schouler and H. H. Bancroft take a contrary view, and the 
thesis that Texas w^as not a part of the Louisiana Purchase is 
ably maintained in an interesting monograph by Professor 
John 11. Ficklen. This discussion is not essential to the 
present narrative, since the United States, after claiming the 
territory as far west not only as the Rio Bravo but even to 
the Kio Grande, yielded the point in 1819, w^hen by treaty 
with Spain the Floridas were acquired and Texas abandoned. 



THE SPANISH DISCOVERERS 5 

It is easy now to see that this great addi- 
tion to our country was of incalculable impor- 
tance. At the time, however, the significance 
of the purchase, which has been called a turn- 
ing point in our history, was not realized. We 
can understand the situation better by showing 
wliat had been learned up to 1803 of the vast 
region which Jefferson and Napoleon added to 
the United States. 

It is sometimes said that the Louisiana ter- 
ritory was unexplored. In one sense this is 
true, but we shall find that as a matter of fact 
many white men had penetrated this wilder- 
ness. The first were Spaniards who followed 
after Columbus. The purpose of Columbus, 
and, for a time, of others after him, was to 
find a water way to Cathay, or China, and the 
Spice Islands by the westward route, and to 
secure their rich trade. The extent of Amer- 
ica was so little understood that much time was 
spent in trying to find a passage through or 
around our continent. Cipango, as Japan was 
called, was supposed to lie much farther east ; 
indeed, in some old maps it seems included 



6 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

within our boundaries. It was the Spanish 
pioneer explorers of tlie sixteenth century who 
first penetrated western North America and 
discovered the vast extent of our country. 

It was in a search for this water route to 
the west that, in 1519, Don Diego Velasquez, 
the Spanish governor of Cuba, sent out four 
caravels commanded by Don Alonzo Alvarez 
de Pineda. The little fleet finally sailed west- 
ward across the Gulf of Mexico until Pineda 
met Cortes, the conqueror of Alexico, and his 
followers, who claimed that territory. The 
point of chief interest to us is that on his return 
Pineda found the mouth of a great river, which 
he explored for a few leagues and named the 
Rio de Espiritu Santo. This was the Missis- 
sippi. We may think of Pineda, therefore, as 
the first white man to approach tlie confines 
of the territory known later as Louisiana. 

A few years later, in 1527, another Spaniard 
reached Louisiana, and the story of this man, 
Alvar Nuiiez Cabeza de Vaca,^ is of peculiar 

^ The " Relation " of Cabeza de Yaca's journey, hy him- 
self, was first published at Zamora, Spain, in 1542. The 



THE SPANISH DISCOYEEERS 7 

historical interest. He was treasurer of an 
expedition sent from Spain to Florida. With 
his comrades he struggled across Florida to the 
Gulf, and then, sorely tried by their hardships, 
they built rude boats as best they could. Their 
horses were killed for food. The manes and 
tails and some vegetable fibers were twisted 
into ropes ; rough tools and nails were wrought 
out of stirrups and spurs, and shirts were pieced 
together for sails. Finally, the unhappy fugi- 
tives put to sea in five boats. They were 
ignorant of the waters and the coast, but they 
hoped to reach the Spanish settlements in 
Mexico. After a time they passed the mouth 
of the Mississippi, and then their boats were 
shattered by storms, and only fifteen men lived 
to be cast upon an island west of the mouth of 
the Mississippi, which they aptly termed " The 
Isle of Misfortunes." 

first edition of Buckingham Smith's translation appeared 
in 1851, and the last, after his death, in 1871. While the 
translator's notes cannot be accepted implicitly in the light 
of later research, this translation holds a jilace of peculiar 
distinction in our early history as the first presentation in 
English of a most important source of historical knowledge. 



8 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Of this remnant all but four were slain 
by the Indians. Cabeza de Vaca himself was 
taken captive. For six terrible years he was 
held by his savage masters, who dwelt in east- 
ern Texas and western Louisiana. Sometimes 
he was forced to act as a "medicine man." 
Again he was sent out as a trader, making 
long journeys as far north as the Red River 
country, where, it is believed, he was the first 
white man to see the "hunch-backed cows," as 
tlie older Spanish writers termed the buffalo. 
Finally, at some point west of the Sabine River 
in Texas, he was reunited to his three sur- 
viving comrades. They succeeded in escaping 
from their captors, and by using the rites of 
"medicine men," with which they mingled 
"earnest prayers to the true God," they pre- 
served themselves from harm at the hands of 
other Indians. 

Slowly and painfully they toiled westward 
across Texas, hoping to reach the Spaniards in 
Mexico. They seem to have crossed the Rio 
Pecos near its junction with the Rio Grande, and 
then crossing the latter river to have journeyed 



LBS S I N V L A R I T F: •? i 

trecefie Flonde ay U rimer e de Palme fe ircuuent ."• '; 
Torcau ^liifrjcs ejpeces de bcflcs monfrrneitfis :e)itrt lijquel-- 
^ • ' lesion feutyoirl'ne eJJ^ecc de^^randstAHreuux ,^or^ 




tins comes lcn?uesfeitlcment d'yn fni- , c^fur le dos 
yne tii/nueur oi* eminence, came '\n chameuu: U poU , 
ion^ par tout le corpSydittjuelLi coitleur s'approchefort i 
ile celle d'^ne mi*lefiMi*e , CT-- encores I'ejtplm ccftty ■ 
aui efl deffouls le mento.Lon en amena yncfui) dettx"^' 
tons yifs en Ej^a^ne^de l"\n dejqueh fay\cit U pcAH 
C^ non autre chofcfCr njpeurennijae longtcmps, 
Cefl dntmalamfi que Ion dit,efl pcrpetitelennemy dt* 
cheual^C""' le pent endnrcr pres de luy. De U fieri- 
Cap vie detirantait promontoire de Baxe ,Je trouuejftel^uc 
Baxc. petite rnnere, on Ics ejclaitesl'ont pejcher huffres, (jut ■ 
portent perles, Or depni^ quefimmes yenftf tufjue la, ■ 

!!!fc^ 1t*e de toucher la ctlleBion dcs huitres , ne '^eux ou* . 
porrans j i i r ' ' ^ 

pcrles. if Iter par quelmoyen les paries enjont ttrtes,tant attx ,• 

Jndes 



The Buffalo 

(From Thevet's " Les Siiigularitez tie la France Antarctique," Antwerp, 
1558. Winsor considers this one of the earliest, if not the 
earliest, picture ot the buffalo.) 



THE SPANISH DISCOVEEERS 9 

through the Mexican states of Chihuahua and 
Sonora. Turning southward they finally, in 
May, 1536, reached Culiacan in Sinaloa, the 
northern outpost of Spanish settlement. Over 
two thousand miles were traversed by these 
fugitives in this flight, which restored them 
to their countrymen eight years after their ill- 
starred expedition landed in Florida. 

With the exception of their passage by the 
mouth of the Mississippi and some wanderings 
in Louisiana and to the north, they had had 
little to do with the actual territory of the 
Purchase,^ but the stories which these survivors 
brought back made others eager to explore 
the mysterious interior of the New World. 

One story which appealed particularly to 
the imaginations of the Spaniards was a tale 
which Cabeza de Vaca had heard of the Seven 
Cities of Cibola, to the north, which were de- 
scribed as full of treasures. In search of these 
cities a fearless priest. Fray Marcos de Nizza, 
started from Sinaloa in 1539, taking with him 
one of Cabeza de Vaca's companions, a negro 

^ That is, of course, eliminating Texas. 



10 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

named Estevanico. He found no treasures, but 
he reached the " cities," which are believed to 
have been the pueblos or villages of the Zuni 
Indians near the present Zuni village in west- 
ern New Mexico. 

When he returned and reported that he had 
actually seen certain strange towns to the 
north, there was a stir among the Spaniards, 
always tireless in the quest for treasure. The 
viceroy of Mexico, Mendoza, promptly organ- 
ized an expedition under the command of 
Coronado, governor of New Galicia, to take 
possession of this rich country. He started in 
1540, captured the Zuni villages and wintered 
in New Mexico, where he heard a marvelous 
tale which brought destruction to many of the 
early treasure seekers. This was the legend of 
Quivira, a wonderful city of gold. Lured by 
this golden myth, Coronado crossed Indian Ter- 
ritory and pressed on to northeastern Kansas.^ 

^ General Simpson believed that Coronado reached a point 
somewhere in the eastern half of the border country of Kan- 
sas and Nebraska. Bandelier placed the main seat of the 
(^uiviras " in northeastern Kansas, beyond the Arkansas 
Kiver and more than 100 miles northeast of Great Bend." 




Pueblo of the Zlni Indians 
(From a photograph) 



THE SPANISH DISCO VEREKS 11 

He found a tribe of Indians called the Qui- 
viras, but they had no gold and knew of none, 
and he was forced to make his painful way 
back empty-handed. This wonderful journey 
of Coronado may be called the first great 
exploration within the Louisiana territory. 

It is most fortunate that narratives of this 
remarkable expedition have come down to us. 
The best of these was written by Castaiieda, 
who is supposed to have been a well-educated 
private soldier in Coronado's army.^ 

A journey far longer and more perilous 
than that of Coronado originated in the devo- 
tion of the brave priest Fray Juan de Padilla, 
who was with Coronado, and returned to min- 
ister to the Quiviras accompanied only by one 
soldier, Andres Docampo, and two boys, Lucas 
and Sebastian. The good priest was slain in 
northeastern Kansas. Docampo and the boys 

^ A translation of this narrative follows Mr. George 
Parker Winship's critical discussion of the Coronado expe- 
dition published in the Report of the Bureau of Ethnology 
for 1892-1893. " The Spanish Pioneers," by C. F. Lumniis, 
offers a vivid sketch of early Spanish exploration and con- 
quest throughout the Western Hemisphere. 



12 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

wandered over the plains for nine heart-break- 
ing years, sometimes prisoners, sometimes 
fugitives, finally reaching the Mexican town of 
Tampico on the Gulf. Their journeyings must 
have covered thousands of miles of Louisiana 
territory, but no records have been preserved.^ 
At the same time that Coronado was leading 
his soldiers eastward, another Spanish officer 
w^as struggling from Florida tow^ards the w^est. 
This was the famous Fernando de Soto, gov- 
ernor of Cuba, who was commissioned to conquer 
the unknown territory on the Gulf of Mexico 
which had been granted to Narvaez by a royal 
patent. De Soto sailed from Havana in 1539 
and, landing his force of nearly six hundred 
men in Florida, fought his bloody way through 
Georgia and Alabama and on to the Mississippi, 
which he crossed at Chickasaw Bluff. This 
was in 1541, and De Soto was the first white 
man to see the Mississipj^i except at its mouth .^ 

^ See " The Spanish Pioneers," by C. F. Lummis. 

^ There has been much historical discussion as to the dis- 
covery of the Mississippi, and the question of the claims of 
Pineda in 1519, of Cabeza de Vaca, who crossed one of its 
mouths in 1528, and of De Soto, has been argued at length 



THE SPANISH DISCOVERERS 



13 



After crossing the great river De Soto marched 
northward to Little Prairie, led by the vague 




De Soto's "First View of the Mississippi River 

tales of gold which so often lured the Spaniards 
to an evil fate. He sent out expeditions, one 

by Rye in the Hakluyt Society's " Discovery and Conquest 
of Florida," 1851. See Winsor's "Narrative and Critical 
History of America," Vol. II, pp. 289-292. 



14 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

of which marched eight days to the north- 
west and reached the open prairies. It seems 
probable tliat De Soto approached the Mis- 
souri River, altliough he learned nothing of it. 

At this very time, in the summer of 1541, 
De Soto and his starving followers must have 
been so near Coronado's army that an Indian 
runner could have carried a message from one 
to the other in a few days. Indeed, Coronado 
heard of these white men and sent a messenger, 
who failed in his errand. Thus, in the first 
half of the sixteenth century two Spaniards, 
one starting from Tampa Bay in Florida and 
the other from the Gulf of California, practi- 
cally completed a journey across the continent.^ 

De Soto's wanderings on the west bank of 
the Mississippi are of interest here chiefly 
because he entered the Louisiana territory. 
He met with little save disaster, and after a 
bitter winter passed on a branch of the Missis- 
sippi, which seems to have been the Washita, 
he started southward with the remnants of 

^ Winsor's " Narrative and Critical History of America," 
Vol. II, p. 2U2. 



THE SPANISH DISCOVERERS 



1; 



his force. At the mouth of the Red Kiver, on 
May 21, 1542, the baffled ^"conqueror" died. 
Surrounded as his survivors were by hostile 
Indians, they dared not leave his body in a 
grave lest the Indians should discover it ; so 



A/or//f Cafo/ina 




this proud Spanish warrior found liis last rest- 
ing place beneath the waters of the Mississippi. 
The survivors, led by Luis de Moscoqo, at 
first undertook to go westward in the hope of 
reaching their countrymen in New Spain, and 
some chroniclers have credited them with so 



16 louisia:n^a puechase 

long a journey across the plains that they 
came within sight of the mountains. But 
their attempts to reach their friends in Mexico 
yielded no results, and they made their pain- 
ful way back to the Mississippi. There they 
built boats and descended the river. They 
skirted the coast of Texas, and in September, 
1543, the wretched remnants of De Soto's once 
proud expedition reached Tampico. 

Pineda had found the mouth of the Rio de 
Espiritu Santo, but De Soto is justly remem- 
bered as the true discoverer of the Mississippi. 
On this discovery was based an early claim to 
Louisiana. But the story of the Spaniards in 
North America was very different from their 
record in the south, where Cortes had gained 
an empire by his conquest of Mexico (1519- 
1521), and Pizarro another in Peru (1531- 
1534). The early expeditions of the Span- 
iards within the present territory of the United 
States represented even larger possibilities, 
as they were the first comers in this new land. 

Pineda, Coronado, De Soto, and other Span- 
iards made their journeys in the first half 



THE SPANISH DISCOVEKERS 



17 



of the sixteenth century, and the oldest town 
in the United States, St. Augustine, Florida, 
was founded by the Spaniards in 1565. The 
Spaniards had sailed by the shores of Virginia 
long before Raleigh had dreamed of settlement. 




Old Spanish Gateway at St. Augustine 

It was not until 1605 that the French on 
the north founded Port Royal, now Annapolis, 
N. S., which was followed by Quebec in 1608. 
It was not until 1607 that the English founded 
Jamestown, in Virginia, and not until 1620 
that the Pilgrims made their way to Plym- 
outh. Thus in the struggle for a continent 



18 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

tlie Spaniards had all the advantages of 
priority, and they might have held North 
America. But Spanish discovery was not ac- 
companied by the qualities which have wrought 
out a very different history for Anglo-Saxon 
expansion, and there were other obstacles. 

Louisiana lay open to Spain in the six- 
teenth century, but the Spaniards, like other 
Europeans of their time, held to the " Bullion 
theory," — that the precious metals were the 
only form of wealth, — and the gold and silver 
of Mexico and South America blinded them 
to tlie opportunities awaiting them in the 
development of the Mississippi valley. Fur- 
thermore, after 1570 Spain's energies were 
absorbed in attempts to supj^ress Protestant- 
ism in Europe and to crush the revolting 
Netherlands.^ In 1588 Spain's maritime 
power was crippled by England's destruction 
of the Invincible Armada. 

All this checked a career in the New World 
which, continuing as it began, might have 

^ See " The Discovery of America," by John Fiske, par- 
ticularly Chapter XII. 



THE SPANISH DISCOVERERS 



19 



meant a warfare against heretics in Virginia 
and New England like that which stained the 
early annals of Florida. It might have meant 
also an assured grasp of the Mississippi and 




Spanish Explorations 

Louisiana. But Spain's distraction and exhaus- 
tion gave a clear field for the English settlers 
on the eastern seaboard, and also for the French 
who came from the north to explore the Missis- 
sippi and claim the interior of our country. 

The seventeenth century found Spain sus- 
picious and uneasy, but for the most part 



20 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

inactive as regards Louisiana. In the early 
eighteenth century, about 1716, a Spanish 
expedition moved eastward from Santa Fe 
to check the French by establishing a mili- 
tary post in the upper Mississippi valley, but 
it came to a disastrous end. So far as the 
Louisiana territory is concerned the brilliant 
beginnings of Spain suffered an inglorious 
lapse. We owe to De Vaca, Coronado, and 
De Soto the amplest knowledge which the 
sixteenth century afforded of the interior of 
North America, but the Spanish desire for 
conquest and gold rather than real coloni- 
zation and development proved impotent in 
the end. 

Many years later than the Spaniards — 
not until the seventeenth century — came 
the French, adventurous, impelled by pride 
of country, desirous of territory and of trade, 
but like the Spaniards lacking the colonizing 
power of the race which finally dominated 
Louisiana. 



CHAPTER II 
THE FRENCH IN LOUISIANA 

Nicollet's early expeditions. Saint Lusson claims the West for 
France. Marquette and Joliet explore the upper Missis- 
sippi. La Salle descends to the mouth. The French claim 
to Louisiana. Tonty and other pioneers. The founders of 
New Orleans. The search for a way to the western ocean. 
Le Sueur and other explorers. The Verendryes see the 
Rocky Mountains. 

It was nearly a century after the disastrous 
end of De Soto's journey and the return of 
Coronado's expedition before the first repre- 
sentative of the New France, which was press- 
ing up the St. Lawrence, reached a tributary 
of the Mississippi. This was Jean Nicollet, 
a French interpreter of Three Rivers, whose 
journey westward as far as Green Bay and the 
Wisconsin River about 1634^ was due to tales 
of a strange people, who, it was held, might 
be the Chinese. This Oriental myth, which 

1 As to the question of date see Winsor, Vol. IV, p. 304. 

21 



22 LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 

persisted so long, was not shattered by Nicol- 
let's discovery that these "Orientals" were 
really Winnebago Indians. He returned be- 
lieving that the Wisconsin River, which he 
claimed^ to have reached and descended for 
a distance, had borne him within three days' 
journey of the sea. 

Tales of the great river, the " Mesipi " of 
the Sioux, were brought back by adventurous 
French traders and priests in the years that 
followed Nicollet's quest. " Through what 
regions did it flow?" In Parkman's eloquent 
words, "Whither would it lead them, — to the 
South Sea or the Sea of Virginia, to Mexico^ 
Japan or China ? The problem was soon to 
be solved and the mystery revealed." 

Of the gallant French explorers who first 
penetrated the interior of our country, one of 
the bravest and deservedly most famous was 
Robert Cavelier, born at Rouen in 1643 and 

iC. W. Butterfield's "History of Discovery by Jean 
Nicollet," etc. (Cincinnati, 1881), indicates that Nicollet 
did not descend the Wisconsin. He was, however, the 
first white man to reach Green Bay. 



THE FEENCH IN LOUISIANA 



23 



best known as La Salle. At the age of twenty- 
tliree he came to Canada. He became seignior 
of an estate near Montreal, but ambition, love 
of adventure, an ardor for discovery and con- 
quest soon led 
him to the ex- 
ploration of the 
unknown West. 
It seems certain 
that in 1669 he 
journeyed from 
Lake Erie to a 
branch of the 
Ohio and de- 
scended at least 
as far as the 
falls at Louis- 
ville. But a more glorious journey of dis- 
covery was yet to come. 

At nearly the same time Jean Talon, 
intendant of Canada, was making the first 
formal move in the great game which was 
to checkmate England and Spain by a French 
control of the interior that would confine 




La Salle 



24 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

England to the eastern seaboard and hold the 
Spaniards at bay m the south and southwest. 
It was with this in view that in 1670 he 
ordered Daumont de Saint Lusson to Lake 
Superior to take possession of the interior. 
It was early in May that the French soldiers 
and priests assembled on a hill near the foot 
of the Sault Sainte Marie, surrounded by 
wondering Indians, w^ho watched them raise 
a cross and place beside it a post bearing the 
arms of France. All the known country of 
the Great Lakes, all the contiguous countries 
discovered and undiscovered, " bounded on the 
one side by the seas of tlie North and of the 
West, and on the other by the South Sea," 
were claimed by Saint Lusson, sword in hand, 
as the possessions of " the most High, Mighty 
and Redoubted Monarch, Louis, Fourteenth of 
that name. Most Christian King of France and 
of Navarre." 

Such was the proud claim of France cover- 
ing the valley of the Mississippi and the coun- 
try to the west ; but of the geography of much 
of the western territory the French had little 



THE FRENCH IX LOUISIANA 



25 



more knowledge than the Spaniards in 1493 
when the bull of Pope Alexander VI divided 
the Western World between the Spaniards 
and Portuguese. 



Of the many 
French soldiers, 
priests, traders, 
and adventurers 
associated with 
the early history 
of the Louisiana 
territory, the 
most famous are 
Father Mar- 
quette and the 
La Salle whom 
we have met at 
the outset of his 
career. It was 




Louis XIV, King of France 



in 1673, sixty-five years after Samuel de 
Champlain founded Quebec, that Louis Joliet, 
an agent of Count Frontenac, governor of 
New France, or Canada, and Father Marquette, 
a Jesuit priest of singular devoutness and 



26 LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 

unflinching courage, were commissioned to 
discover the great river which had proved so 
elusive, — the Mississippi. From Mackinaw 
they journeyed to Green Bay and entered Fox 
River. With the aid of Indian guides they 
found their way to a portage which brought 
them to the Wisconsin River. " They bade 
farewell to the waters that flowed to the 

St. Lawrence, 
and committed 
themselves to 
the current that 

Autograph of Jolliet, 

OR JOLIET AS THE NAME WaS tO DCar 
IS USUALLY SPELLED ^|^g^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ 

not whither, — perhaps to the Gulf of Mexico, 
perhaps to the South Sea, or the Gulf of 
California." -^ 

On June 17 they reached the present site of 
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and there before 
them stretched the stream which was the object 
of their quest. Day after day, in spite of strange 
and terrifying adventures, they kept their way 

^ Parkman, " La Salle and the Discovery of the Great 
West." 





^ . J 

r A T 1 1 E R Ma R Q T7 E TT K 

(From Trentanove's statue in tlie Capitol at Washington) 

This is an ideal figure. In 181)7 a painting was discovered in Montrcnl wliich 
is claimed to be a portrait. 



THE FRENCH IN LOUISIANA 27 

down the great river, passing the mouth of the 
Missouri, which Lewis and Clark were after- 
wards to ascend, and finally reaching the mouth 
of the Arkansas. They were seven hundred 
miles from the mouth of the Mississippi, al- 
though they thought themselves much nearer ; 
but their journey had made it clear that the 
Mississippi flowed southward to the Gulf of 
Mexico. This fact was ascertained, and, since 
below them lay danger from hostile Indians and 
possibly from Spaniards, they reembarked on 
July 17, and set forth on their arduous return 
journey to report their discovery. In accord- 
ance with the custom of these pioneer priests 
Father Marquette kept a careful journal, and 
this " Relation," as it is called, preserves the 
record of the perilous quest of a classic figure 
in the discovery of the West.^ 

In 1682 La Salle, seeking a trade route for 
the transportation of heavy skins, descended 
the Mississippi to its mouth. This was the first 
time that the entire course of the " Father of 

^Mr. Reuben G. Thwaite's "Father Marquette" is an 
excellent presentation of this story. 



28 



LOUISIANA PUE(JHASE 



Waters" had been traversed by a white man. 
On April 9, on the shore near the mouth, he 







La Salle at the Mouth of the Mississippi 

erected a eoknnn bearing the arms of France 
and an inscription, and took possession of ^^this 



THE FEENCH IN LOUISIANA 29 

country of Louisiana " from " the mouth of 
the great river St. Louis, otherwise called the 
Ohio, ... as also along the river Colbert,-^ or 
Mississippi, and the rivers which discharge 
themselves thereinto, from its source ... as 
far as its mouth. ..." 

But after this triumj^h came a dangerous ill- 
ness which kept him a prisoner at the Chicka- 
saw Bluffs, while his faith- 
ful follower Tonty was ^m^^^^f i 
dispatched to Michilli- ^^^J^^\aX^ 
mackinac^ with tidings <=^L 

of his success. La Salle 

Autograph of Tonty 

returned to France and 

was finally, in 1684, enabled to set sail for the 

^ A short-lived name given in honor of the minister of 
finance of Louis XIV. 

2 The name was applied generally hy the French to the 
region about the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Huron 
and Lake IVIichigan. The island of Mackinac to the east 
was an early military post, and was also the first site of the 
mission of St. Ignace, afterwards transferred to the present 
site of St. Ignace on the mainland north of the straits, 
where Father ISIarquette was finally interred a year after 
his death in 1G75 near the present site of Ludington, 
Michigan. A century later the English built a fort at the 
present site of Mackinaw City, south of the straits. 



30 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

mouth of the Mississippi with a force which 
was to build fortifications, establish a colony, 
and hold the country against the Spanish. 
Through an error they landed at Matagorda 
Bay, in Texas, and there followed a squahd 
period of privation, suffering, and discontent, 
culminating in a conspiracy of La Salle's fol- 
lowers and the assassination of this brave 
explorer in 1687. 

Several of those who served with La Salle 
made their mark in the early annals of the 
west. Joutel and Tonty, his loyal lieutenants, 
have left valuable records of adventurous ex- 
plorations. Another less heroic figure was 
Father Hennepin, the discoverer of the Falls 
of St. Anthony at Minneapolis, who for a time 
accompanied La Salle. But Father Hennepin, 
unhappily, was romancer as well as historian. 

To Pierre Le Sueur is due the credit of a 
journey in 1700 from the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi to the country of the Sioux, in the 
present state of Minnesota, and a return down 
the river. This journey was made in a profit- 
less search for furs and mineral wealth. In the 



THE FKENCH IN LOUISIANA 31 

same year Pierre Le Moyne d'lberville planned 
an expedition to the upper Missouri, lured by 
the hope of a western passage down some river 
to the western sea. In 1717 Hubert urged a 
similar plan upon the French Council of Marine.^ 
The behef in the myth of the northwest pass- 
age^ to the Orient was waning, but there was 
still faith, not wholly unfounded, in a nearly 
continuous river route to the western ocean, 
and, failing this, it was believed that a way 
could be made by land. 

^ In 1704 Bienville reported that over one hundred 
Canadians were scattered along the Mississippi and Mis- 
souri. In 1705 a Canadian named Laurain claimed to 
have ascended the Missouri, and in 1708 Nicolas de la Salle 
proposed a plan like those of Iberville and Hubert. In 
1719 Du Tisn6 ascended the Missouri above Grand River. 
Afterward he crossed the state of Missouri and reached the 
Indians on the Osage River. The early eighteenth-century 
explorations of Saint Denis, La Harpe, Bourgmont, and the 
brothers Mallet, for the most part in the southern half of 
the Louisiana territory, in Texas, and even New Mexico, 
helped, in the language of Parkman ("A Half Century of 
Conflict "), " to unveil the remote southwest." 

2 This idea repre^sented a phase of the long search for a 
northwest passage to the Orient, which is perhaps most closely 
identified in the popular mind with the early attempts in the 
region of Hudson Bay and in the Arctic. 



32 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Under the regency of the Duke of Orleans, 
in 1716, three posts were planned between 
Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg to serve 
as bases of supplies for an overland expedi- 
tion, and one was actually built at the mouth 
of the river Kaministiguia on the north shore 
of Lake Superior. But nothing more was done, 
and three years later Charlevoix, the Jesuit his- 
torian of early Canada, was ordered to visit the 
country and report upon a passage to the west- 
ern sea. His report was that the Pacific prob- 
ably lay just to the west of the country of the 
Sioux. One plan which he advocated was the 
ascent of the Missouri, " the source of which is 
certainly not far from the sea." 

Iberville and Charlevoix had pointed to the 
Missouri as the route nearly a century before 
the journey of Lewis and Clark. Then came 
the Verendryes, who preceded the Americans 
almost to the Kocky Mountains. 

La Verendrye the elder, a French soldier, 
explorer, and trader, built forts at the Lake 
of the Woods, on the site of Winnipeg, and at 
the mouth of the Saskatchewan. In the course 




P 
O 

P5 



Q 
!?; 

O 

w 

a 

H 
O 

■a; 



THE FEENCH IN LOUISIANA 33 

of his expeditions he traveled as far as the 
Mandan villages on the Missouri in his search 
for the western sea. This was in 1 738. It was 
among the descendants of these Mandans living 
near Bismarck, Dakota, that Lewis and Clark 
passed a winter nearly seventy years later. 

In 1742 the two sons of Verendrye made 
their way to the Mandan villages, and un- 
dertook an expedition westward, under the 
guidance of the Indians, hoping to find the 
Pacific. They traveled between the Black 
Hills and the Missouri, entered Montana, and 
finally, after much uncertain journeying and 
many strange experiences with the nomadic 
tribes of Indians, the mountains rose before 
them. The Spaniards had crossed the moun- 
tains to the south, but the Yerendryes were 
the first white men to see the true Rocky 
Mountains on the north. It was in January, 
1743, that they discovered the mountains, 
probably the Big Horn range in Wyoming. 
In the records of French Louisiana the names 
of the Yerendryes merit a place with those of 
Father Marquette and La Salle. 



CHAPTER III 

THE FRENCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY 

The founding of New Orleans. Extent of French possessions. 
The beginnings of St. Louis. The gateway of Louisiana. 
Downfall of French power. Louisiana ceded to Spain. 
American and English explorations. Oregon not included 
in Louisiana. 

AVhile French explorers and traders were 
following the northern rivers, signs of genu- 
ine colonization began to appear in the south. 
At the beginning of the eighteenth century 
three countries maintained conflicting claims 
to the valley of the Mississippi. Spain held 
Florida and based her claim to the westward 
on De Soto's discovery of the great river. 
France held the upper waters, and La Salle 
and otliers had descended the river to its 
mouth and asserted possession. The char- 
ters of some of the English colonies on the 

34 



FRENCH IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 35 

seaboard embodied sweeping claims to terri- 
tory from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

In spite of the doubts of King Louis XIV 
of France as to the value of the new coun- 
try, he was finally persuaded to sanction the 
founding of a French colony at the mouth 
of the Mississippi. This was largely due to 
the enthusiasm of a gallant Canadian, Pierre 

Autograph of Le Moyne d'Iberville 

Le Moyne d'Iberville, who sailed from France 
with an armed expedition in 1698. The first 
colony was established the year following at 
Biloxi, upon the Gulf of Mexico, within the 
present limits of Mississippi, but its checkered 
career was ended in 1718, when Bienville 
d'Iberville, a brother of Le Moyne, founded 
the city of New Orleans. 

The early years of the French colonists 
were not prosperous. In an effort to make 
the colony a source of income rather than 




36 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

expense, the king in 1712 gave to Antoine 
Crozat an exclusive right to trade in that 
quarter. The failure of this plan resulted in its 

abandonment in 1717, 
and the Company 
of the West, better 
known as the Missis- 
sippi Company, was 
formed, which succeeded to Crozat's rights. 

Under the leadership of the notorious John 
Law, who for a time was a financial mag- 
nate in France, the company issued an unlim- 
ited amount of paper money without adequate 
security. This was done in part to further 
the interests of the company in the Mississippi 



Autograph of Bienville 




Autograph of John Law 



valley ; but after a period of wild excitement 
and speculation in France it was found that the 
paper money could not be exchanged for coin 
or solid property, and in 1721 there followed 



FEENCH IN EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY 37 

collapse, failure, and ruin. This was the end 
of what is known as the Mississippi Bubble. 

In spite of the dismay and suffering caused 
by this failure, the growth of the colony was 
quickened during this era of speculation by 
enforced emigration from France, since it was 



-VUE DE ]A :XOU\'£LLE ORLEANS EN ,1119 




H J.es Jte^ VII iiiimlirrs tli'jjiotnycoif .fPiit enliiiuyirifciin.faiitnnO ttvu ztiotr do litnnea' vu. le 
ilcbortTcnu'iil ilatctiii.r tfii/'Aiine f/fi>iiis /(• ■:,> iiuir.r/iui/ti iiii, ^rium/JfattmC la^illa itya> 
iiui' Irif'e rf ftiir tlcrn'tn tin /a<n> etmulrer A'rvu/i-mfiit.t.n 



uLu-i/J'ivru. 



New Orleans in 1719 



necessary to settle and develop the new lands 
as quickly as possible. These troubles, with 
attacks by the Indians, illness, and lack of 
proper supplies, clouded the early years of 
French settlement in Louisiana ; but the 
French remained, and later the colony began 
to enjoy prosperity. 



38 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Thus by discovery, exploration (and to some 
extent by colonization), and by the building 
of forts on the north and east, the French 
held the Mississippi valley, together with the 
vaguely known empire to the west. The word 
" colonization " must be accepted with limita- 
tions, for neither the French nor the Spanish 
were led by the motives which caused the Eng- 
lish settlers to regard the new country as a 
permanent home and to develop it for the 
future as well as for the present. But while 
New Orleans was struggling through its early 
years at the mouth of the Mississippi, the 
French trappers and traders were descending 
the river from the north. ^ 

In 1762 M. d'Abbadie, the French director 
general of Louisiana, granted to Pierre Laclede, 
the head of a company of merchants, the 
exclusive right to trade with the Indians on 
the Missouri. Two years later this company 
founded the city of St. Louis, selecting its 
present site for the erection of a house and 
four stores. This was the beginning of the 
city, which for practically a century remained 



FEENCH IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 39 



the commercial center of the Louisiana terri- 
tory. It was here that the American fur trade 
had its headquarters, and up to nearly the 
middle of the nineteenth century the traffic 
in furs was the chief industry of the Louisiana 
territory.^ As time went on the commerce 
of the Southwest and of the great river 
passed in swelling volume 
through St. Louis, 
the gateway of the 
West ; but all this 
was then in tin 



future. Even 
before St. Louis 
was founded a 
change had come in the fortunes of France. 
The long warfare between the French and 
English in North America had culminated, 
and the rule of France on this continent was 
ended forever. 




The Royal Flag of France 



^ The " History of the American Fur Trade," and the 
" History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri 
River," by Captain Hiram M. Chittenden, U.S.A., ai'e indis- 
pensable to students of the early nineteenth-century history 
of the West. 



40 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



In 1759 the English General Wolfe defeated 
the French General Montcalm on the Plains of 
Abraham, under the walls of Quebec. Four 
years later, in 1763, France ceded to England 
her American possessions east of the Missis- 
sippi, with the 
exception of New 
Orleans.^ But 
New Orleans 
and the French 
possessions west 
of the Missis- 
sippi, — that is, 
the country of 
the Louisiana 
Purchase, — were 
secretly ceded to 
Spain by King Louis XV of France, who 
desired to cement a Spanish alliance. 

In 1768 the first Spanish governor appeared 
at New Orleans, and northward from the sea 




Montcalm 



^ In the same year Spain transferred Florida to England 
in exchange for Havana, but Spain received Florida back 
in 1783. 



FRENCH IN EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY 41 

along the west bank of the Mississippi, four- 
teen hundred miles, the Spanish authority 
prevailed. All the traffic down the Missis- 
sippi from the valley of the Ohio or else- 
where must pass under the Spanish flag. 

The American Revolution was at this time 
close at hand. Then there came the critical 
period of the adoption of the Constitution and 
the organization of the government of the 
United States, so that the attention of the 
American people was occupied elsewhere. For 
nearly forty years the Spaniards, who had been 
the first to penetrate the Louisiana Purchase, 
held full possession, although, as we shall see, 
France presently undertook to regain the coun- 
try, and with the growth of the United States 
west of the AUeghenies the American pressure 
began to strain the arbitrary boundaries. 

The Spaniards made no prolonged explora- 
tions to the north, but Americans and English 
began to investigate the unknown and remote 
west. Jonathan Carver, a native of New York 
and an officer in the war with France, sug- 
gested an attempt to cross the northwest 



42 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

portion of America by land. This was looked 
upon as visionary, but in 1766 Carver under- 
took an exploring expedition in which he 
followed the Minnesota River for some two 
hundred miles. The interest of this journey 
to us lies in the fact that Career heard much 
from the Indians regarding the " Shining Moun- 
tains/' as the Rocky Mountains were termed, 
and that he learned of the Oregon, or " River 
of the West," which is now the Columbia. It 
occurred to him that by ascending the Mis- 
souri it might be possible to cross to the head 
waters of the Columbia. But official indiffer- 
ence prevented the attempt. This idea was 
carried out nearly forty years afterward by 
Lewis and Clark. Twenty-five years later a 
Scotchman, Alexander Mackenzie, crossed the 
continent to the Pacific, but his route lay 
farther north, through what is now Manitoba 
and British Columbia. 

On tlie Pacific coast the Spaniards held 
California, but they knew little of the North- 
west. This was reached by the famous ex- 
plorer. Captain Cook, who visited Alaska in 



FRENCH IN EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY 43 

1778. Vancouver, another English explorer, 
sailed by the mouth of the Columbia without 
entering it ; this was left for American enter- 
prise. In 1787 some Boston merchants sent 
Captain Robert Gray in the sloop Washington 
and Captain John Kendrick in the ship Colum- 
bia around Cape Horn to the northwest coast 
to trade for furs, which were to be exchanged 
for silk and tea in China. So far as Gray was 
concerned the journey was successful, and after 
exchanging ships with Kendrick, Gray returned 
by way of China in the Columbia, which was 
the first ship to circumnavigate the globe 
under the American flag. On this first voy- 
age Gray nearly lost his ship on the bar of 
an unknown stream, probably the Columbia. 
On his second voyage, in 1792, he entered 
and named the great river. His discovery 
was earlier than that of Vancouver and 
formed the basis of the subsequent claim to 
Oregon urged by the United States against 
Great Britain.^ Gray was followed by other 

^ H. n. Bancroft argues for the discovery of the CoUim- 
bia by Heceta in 1775, but Gray's discovery is generally 



44 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

traders, and in a few years a regular trading 
post was established near the mouth of the 
Columbia. 

While a knowledge of these northwestern 
explorations is desirable, it should be under- 
stood that Oregon, as the northwest beyond 
the Rocky Mountains was called, was not in- 
cluded in the Louisiana Purchase. The Loui- 
siana Purchase extended only to the Rocky 
Mountains, but, as it was important to find 
a way across and to explore the Columbia to 
the sea, the task of finding a route to the 
Pacific was included in the instructions to 
Lewis and Clark. 

accepted. The rival claims of Gray and Vancouver and 
their relation to the Oregon question are not essential here. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE AMEEICAN WESTWARD MOVEMENT 

Advancing beyond the Alleglienies. Settlement rather than 
exploration or exploitation. Experiences of the pioneers. 
Their way to the sea blocked by Spanish control of the 
mouth of the Mississippi. How the Spaniards ruled New 
Orleans. 

After the long periods of desultory Span- 
ish exploration, of French trading expeditions 
and attempts at military and commercial 
occupation which have been sketched in the 
preceding chapters, the history of Louisiana 
shows the influence of Americans bent upon 
actual settlement of the country to the west- 
ward of the Alleghenies.^ The downfall of 

1 McMaster's " History of the People of the United 
States," Vol. II, and Roosevelt's " Winning of the West " 
give picturesque accounts of the pioneers and the significance 
of their movement. Hinsdale's " The Old Northwest," Win- 
sor's "The Mississippi Basin (1697-1763)" and "The West- 
ward Movement (1763-1798) " may be consulted with profit. 

45 



46 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



French power on this continent brought the 
beginning of another era in the history of 
Louisiana. But the operation of the forces 
represented in the American westward pres- 
sure was delayed, first by the Revohition, and 
then by the fierce opposition of the south- 
western and north- 
western Indian tribes 
who fought to hold 
the Middle West. In 
spite of all obstacles 
the way was opened 
by the rifles of the 
soldiers and frontiers- 
men who followed 
George Rogers Clark, 
Anthony Wayne, 
and other leaders in 
the winning of the West. Close behind them 
came a swelling tide of migration across the 
Alleghenies. The sound of the axes and rifles 
of the American pioneers along the eastern trib- 
utaries of the Mississippi marked the opening 
of a new epoch in the history of the West. 




V'/ 



George Rogers Clark 




George Rogers Clark's Expedition to capture 

ViXCEXNES IN 1779 



AMERICAN WESTWARD MOVEMENT 47 




Up to the end of the Revolution the pos- 
session of Louisiana territory by one foreign 
power or another had 
not touched Ameri- 
cans closely. But 
now the conditions 
were changed. In 
the western migra- 
tion of the later 
eighteenth century 
and the demands of 
these frontiersmen 
for a free route to the 
seaboard lay influences which finally resulted 
in the acquisition of Louisiana.^ 

^ " In 1784 Pittsburg numbered one hundred dwellings 
and almost one thousand inhabitants. It was the centring 
point of emigrants to the West, and from it the travellers 
were carried in keel-boats, in Kentucky flat-boats, and Indian 
pirogues down the waters of the Ohio, ... to the filthy and 
squalid settlements at the falls of the Ohio, or on to the 
shores of the Mississippi, where La Clede, twenty years 
earlier, had laid the foundations of St. Louis. . . . The boat 
was at every moment likely to become entangle'd in the 
branches of the trees that skirted the river, or be fired 
into by the Indians who lurked in the woods. The cabin 
was therefore low, . . . and lined with blankets and with 



Anthony Wayne 



48 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

The growth of this movement is shown by 
the returns of the census for Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, and the Northwest Territory, which 
then represented our West. In 1790 there 
were 73,677 people in Kentucky, and in 1800 
there w^ere 220,955. Tennessee showed 35,691 
people in 1790, and 105,602 in 1800. The 
census of 1790 gives no population for Ohio 
and Indiana territories, but ten years later 
there were 44,678. Before these stalwart 
pioneers the forests were swept aside to make 
room for farms. Rude log cabins were built 
with chimneys of logs plastered with mud. 
The settlers made their simple furniture with 
their own tools. Their huntino: shirts and 
trousers were of homemade linsey, a mixture 
of linen and wool, and of deerskin. Most of 
their food was gained by their rifles and their 
traps. Corn was pounded or ground in rude 

beds to guard the inmates from Indian bullets. From 
St. Louis rude boats and rafts floated down the river to 
Natchez and New Orleans. . . . The current was so rapid 
that it seemed hopeless to attempt a return. The boats 
were therefoi-e hastily put together and sold at New Orleans 
as lumber." — McMaster's History, Vol. I, pp. 69-70. 



AMEEICAN WESTWARD MOVEMENT 49 

stone mortars to make meal. But the vigor 
and energy of these hardy pioneers soon bet- 
tered their condition. They began to raise 
tobacco and wlieat and to cure hams and 
bacon. Then came the question of trade. ^ 

How could they exchange these products 
for money or for goods of which they stood in 
need? There was no market at hand. The 
railroad was yet in the future. To the east- 
ward lay the Alleghenies and a long and 
difficult journey by land impossible for their 
purposes. Their easiest and cheapest route to 
a market was by water, and close at hand 
were the Ohio and other rivers flowino: to the 

^ Certain economic phases of this pioneer life have been 
summarized as follows : " Currency was very scarce and was 
replaced by articles of general value, such as skins and jugs 
of whiskey. Cowbells were also such a necessity that they 
became an acceptable tender. Small currency was scarce, 
and a silver dollar was often cut into half dollars or quarters 
with an axe or chisel. . . . Salt was worth six cents a pound. 
Beef sold at four cents a pound and deer meat at three. . . . 
Corn was sold at fifty cents a bushel. A single log cabin 
could be built for '1^150. Feather beds were a great luxury 
and readily brought six dollars each. The family washing- 
was done on the river bank." — Sparks's " Expansion of 
the American People." 



50 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



Mississippi, and offering a tempting water 
way to New Orleans and the sea. But New 
Orleans was held by the Spaniards. Their 
laws and customs regulations were arbitrary ; 




A Flatboat on the Ohio 

their business methods were antiquated, com- 
plicated, and irksome. Between their medi- 
aeval rule and the free and impatient spirit 
of the pioneers there was instant conflict. 
In the early nineties the Spanish authorities 



AMERICAN WESTWARD MOVEMENT 51 

closed navigation and refused to grant the 
right to deposit goods at New Orleans to 
await the arrival of trading vessels. This 
right was essential for the men who journeyed 
down the great river in their " broad-horns," 
or rude homemade boats. 

A crisis seemed at hand in 1795, but it was 
averted by the Spanish minister of state, 
Manuel Godoy, known as the " Prince of 
Peace," ^ who more than once had proved his 
friendly feeling for the United States. In 
1795 a treaty was signed, which granted the 
right of deposit, with certain minor limita- 
tions, for three years. Thus an outbreak 
was averted. The way to a market was kept 
open during the three years, and thereafter 
until 1802. Then the Spaniards withdrew 
the right of deposit, the West rose in pro- 
test, and therein lay a potent motive for the 

* This remarkable title was derived from Godoy's negoti- 
ation of the treaty of Basel with France in 179.'), His per- 
sonal character was open to reproach, but in his attitude 
toward France and toward American interests at the mouth 
of the Mississippi he rendered valuable aid to the United 
States. 



52 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

acquisition of at least the month of the Mis- 
sissippi. But the immediate demand of these 
American settlers was not for Louisiana, but 
simply for an open seaport, or at most tlie 
possession of the river's mouth. 

On the south, therefore, the Americans 
were shut in by Spain. In these days, when 
we have seen Spain losing the very last of 
her holdings in the Western Hemisphere, it 
is hard to realize the extent of her sway 
a little more than a century ago. A hun- 
dred years before our war with Spain the 
Spaniards held Texas, Mexico, and the Flori- 
das, not to mention the West Indies and all 
of Central and South America except Brazil. 
They controlled the ports of Pensacola, Mobile, 
and New Orleans. The Spanish possessions 
ran from Fernandina to Natchez, and then 
north on the west bank of the Mississippi to 
the Lake of the Woods. Above New Orleans, 
as far as Point Coupee, there were planta- 
tions aud villages. North of Point Coupee 
the west bank of the river was, with few 
exceptions, a wilderness. 



AMERICAN WESTWARD MOVEMENT 53 

The older part of New Orleans/ which was 
laid out under Bienville by the Sieur La Blonde 
de la Tour, was inclosed by ramparts. Most 
of the streets retained their French names. 
Outside the ramparts dwelt a motley colony 
of foreigners and Americans. Many of the 
latter were traders who had floated down the 
river in clumsy boats, bringing produce for 
sale or shipment. The levee was crowded 
with shipping and piled high with goods. 
Spanish officers, regidores, alcaldes, and syn- 
dics, ruled a city which offered a most pictur- 
esque mingling of Spanish, French, Creole, 
foreign, and American types. But while all 
this was undoubtedly picturesque, the mediae- 
val customs of the Spaniards, and their many 
rules and taxes, were galling to the active and 
impatient Americans. 

1 McMaster, Vol. Ill, chap, xiv, gives a picturesque de- 
scription of Spanish New Orleans. 



CHAPTER V 
LOUISIANA'S CEITICAL PEEIOD 

France tries to regain the West. Genet's intrigues. Attitude 
of England and Spain. Napoleon's designs. Talleyrand's 
plans for a colonial empire. Louisiana ceded to France. 
Napoleon's plans checked by Toussaint's rebellion in San 
Domingo. 

If Spanish control of the outlet of our 
western trade was bad, a French rule under 
the aggressive Napoleon would have been 
worse, and this began to appear as a possi- 
bility. The pride of the French had been 
hurt by their cession of Louisiana to Spain. 
So strong was this feeling that various efforts 
were made by French ministers to regain the 
lost territory. To the government of the 
United States Louisiana became in the last 
decade of the eighteenth century a source 
of constant anxiety. From the beginning 
of this decade to the consummation of the 

54 



LOUISIANA'S CEITLCAL PERIOD 55 

pvirchase in 1803 was the most critical period 
in the varied history of Louisiana. Within 
our borders there was the expansion of a race 
not to be held in check. Without, the efforts 
of three great powers were concerned at vari- 
ous times with the possession of Louisiana. 
A mere outline of these efforts will illustrate 
the perils of the situation. 

In 1790, when England and Spain were at 
variance, the English minister William Pitt 
contemplated a seizure 
of the Floridas and Lou- 
isiana, which Washing- 
ton, and Jefferson, then 
secretary of state, 
rightly viewed as a menace to the future of 
the United States. Fortunately the danger 
passed, but only to be succeeded by a new 
peril. 

France, eager to recover Louisiana, sent 
Genet as her minister to the United States 
in 1793 with a proposition for an alliance 
which should aim at the wresting of Canada 
from England and the seizure of Louisiana 




Autograph of Genet 



66 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

and the Floridas from Spain. When this 
"entangling foreign alliance" was declined, 
Genet, acting under secret instructions from 
his government, instigated movements in the 
Carolinas and Georgia to seize the Floridas, 
and in Kentucky to descend upon New 
Orleans. The frontiersmen were ready, but 
the progress of the French Revolution and the 
request of our government for Genet's recall 
prevented a frontier revolt against Spanish 
occupation which might have had results of 
lasting consequence. 

The plottings of Genet to wrest Louisiana 
from Spain were followed by France's attempt 
to secure Louisiana through the treaty of Basel, 
which closed her war with Spain. In 1796, 
through the French minister to Spain, another 
effort was made in the series, which resulted 
in success in 1800. By 1797 there were added 
complications. The Spanish minister at Wash- 
ington was expressing apprehensions of an 
invasion of upper Louisiana by the English. 
The English minister Liston denied the 
charge, but admitted that there had been 



LOUISIANA'S CEITICAL PEEIOD 57 

some discussion of an invasion of Louisiana 
from the soutli. As a matter of fact, Senator 
Blount of Tennessee was implicated in this 
plot and was expelled from the Senate/ 

In the following year Talleyrand broached 
his plan of a great colonial French empire in 
his formal proposition to Spain to exchange 
Louisiana for a principality to be made up of 
the papal legations and the duchy of Parma. 
This ambitious scheme was coupled with a 
generally in- 
imical attitude * ♦ /* • '^^ r^ ^ty ^^r^^^J 
on the part of 

^ Autograph of Talleyrand 

France, which 

led to open hostilities on the sea between 
the United States and France in 1798-1799. 
England, stirred by the growing aggressive- 
ness of France, contemplated cooperation with 
the United States in the prevention of the 
transfer of Louisiana to France. 



1 The Spanish delay, 1795-1799, in removing troops 
from Wahiut Hills, Chickasaw Bhiff, and other river posts 
according to the treaty, irritated our West and influenced 
the Blount conspiracy. 



58 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Next, in 1800, came the secret treaty of 
retrocession by which Louisiana was to be 
returned to France, and in 1802 we find an 
Enghsh alliance again considered as a possible 
means of defense against French aggression.^ 
In addition to these menaces of foreit^n inter- 
ference we must bear in mind the pressure 
exercised at home by frontier settlers, sorely 
tried by Spanish exactions, and none too 
patient or law-abiding at the best. This 
pressure made the outcome inevitable.^ The 
various parts which the question played in 
our own politics need not be dwelt upon in 
detail, but it contained possibilities not only 

1 " From the moment that France takes New Orleans 
we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." 

— Jefferson to Livingston. 

2 " The winning of Louisiana was due to no one man, and 
least of all to any statesman or set of statesmen. It followed 
inevitably upon the great westward thrust of the settler folk, 

— a thrust which was delivered blindly, but which no rival 
race could parry until it was stopped by the ocean itself." 

The fourth volume of Theodore Roosevelt's " Winning 
of the West," from which this extract was taken, was pub- 
lished in 1896, when the author could not foresee that the 
"westward thrust" of Americans was not to be stopped 
even by the ocean. 



LOUISIANA'S CRITICAL PEKIOD 59 

of most serious foreign embroilments but also 
of dangerous internal dissensions. 

Of all these attempts upon Louisiana the 
most dangerous, and the most important as 
regards their unlooked-for outcome, were the 
efforts of France made through Talleyrand, 
who became minister of foreign affairs for the 
French Directory in 1797. 

In the following year Talleyrand wrote the 
French minister at Madrid that the Floridas 
and Louisiana should be returned to France 
in order that the power of America might be 
bounded by the limits set by France and 
Spain. In 1800 Napoleon, then First Con- 
sul, endeavored again to secure Louisiana 
from Spain. When, on October I, 1800, he 
signed the convention or agreement between 
France and the United States which closed 
the little war between the two countries, 
Napoleon at the same time drew up a 
secret treaty with Spain, providing that Loui- 
siana should be given back to France. All 
knowledge of this was carefully kept from 
the world. Napoleon intended that nothing 



60 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

should be known of his plan until he was 
ready to land a force of troops at New 
Orleans. For this purpose the French portion 
of the island of San Domingo would be a 
most important base of operations. 

But these plans were checked by a series of 
events which led even Napoleon to change his 
purpose. The influence of the Spanish min- 
ister Godoy kept King Carlos lY of Spain 
from signing the treaty with France until 
the autumn of 1802. In San Domingo there 
began in 1791 among the colored population 
an era of bloodshed which included civil war, 
massacre, and warfare against Spain and 
France, the powers which claimed control of 
the island. Out of this time of carnao:e and 
revolt rose the historic figure of Toussaint 
L'Ouverture.^ 

^ '< The story of Toussaint L'Ouverture has been told 
almost as often as that of Napoleon, but not in connection 
with the history of the United States, although Toussaint 
exercised on their history an influence as decisive as that 
of any European ruler. His fate placed him at a point 
where Bonaparte needed absolute control. San Domingo 
was the only center from which the measures needed for 



LOUISIANA'S CEITICAL PERIOD 61 

One of the most curious of the many 
strange events associated with Louisiana is 
that Toussaint L'Ouverture, born a slave in 
the French part of San Domingo, should have 
done so much to thwart the ambition of Napo- 
leon for a colonial empire. In 1794, after a 
period of civil war and anarchy in the island, 
the National Assembly of France abolished 






>//ukc_^ 



Autograph of Toussaint L'Ouvekture 

slavery, and the negroes, led by Toussaint, drove 
the Spaniards from the portion of the island 
which they held. He became the actual ruler, 
although San Domingo was nominally a colony 
of France. But he distrusted France and 
with reason, for Napoleon in spite of friendly 

rebuilding the French colonial systems could radiate. 
Before Bonaparte could reach Louisiana he was obliged to 
crush the power of Toussaint." — "History of the United 
States," by Henry Adams, Vol. I, p. 378. 



62 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

promises intended to crush the idea of free- 
dom cherished by Toussaint and his followers. 

When in 1798 the United States became 
involved with France, and commercial rela- 
tions were suspended, Toussaint declared his 
independence and assured the United States 
that he would safeguard trade if it were re- 
newed. His soldiers cooperated with the 
American fleet at the siege of Jacmel, a port 
of San Domingo. But our half-war with 
France came to an end. In Europe the 
treaty of Amiens closed the war between 
France and England, and then Napoleon was 
free to crush Toussaint. 

In 1802 Napoleon sent General Leclerc with 
a great fleet and army to reconquer and occupy 
the island. Although Toussaint had aided us 
against France, the United States now made 
no offer of intervention in his behalf. The 
negroes fought desperately against the French, 
but they were overmatched. Toussaint sm*- 
rendered and was carried to France, where he 
died in prison. There are grewsome pages 
in the history of that insurrection, but 



LOUISIANA'S CRITICAL PERIOD 63 

Toussaint's war for liberty will always touch 
the sympathies of American readers. 

Tlie victory of the French in San Domingo 
was dearly bought. Napoleon's purpose in 
the summer of 1802 was ^' to take possession 
of Louisiana in the shortest time possible." 
But Toussaint's rebellion and the ravages 
of yellow fever among the French troops 
involved delay and appalling loss. Time 
brought a change of purpose, and Napoleon's 
veterans never landed to occupy Louisiana 
and face the frontiersmen and soldiers of 
the United States. 



CHAPTER YI 

LOUISIANA AN ACTIVE ISSUE 

The East slow to see the facts. Foresight of Washington, 
Jefferson, and Hamilton. A critical period. Spanish 
exactions. The river closed. Popular agitation. The 
West ready for war. Jefferbon resolves to buy New Orleans 
and the Floridas. Monroe appointed commissioner. Liv- 
mgston's work in Paris. Talleyrand's startling proposi- 
tion. How Napoleon made his purpose known. A family 
quarrel in a bath-room. 

Although the western expansion of Ameri- 
cans after the Revolution had made control 
of the Mississippi a question of swiftly increas- 
ing consequence, this had become apparent but 
slowly to the people of the East. A few states- 
men saw the difficulties which were realized 
so forcibly by the pioneers who were pushing 
the frontier to the west. As early as 1782, 
while the negotiations were in progress which 
resulted in the establishment of peace with 
England by the Treaty of Paris the following 

64 



LOUISIANA AN ACTIVE ISSUE 



65 



year, Franklin wrote to Jay that to part with 
the Mississippi were as if one should sell his 
street door.^ In 1790 Washington declared 
that '' we must have and certainly shall have 
the fuU navigation of the Mississippi." It 
was a necessity pointed out in the same year 
bv Jefferson when 
secretary of state. 
In 1799 Alexan- 
der Hamilton, 
even then in ad- 
vance of his time, 
argued that we 
should possess not 
only the Florid as 
but the whole of 
Louisiana. Yet 
popular sentiment 
in the East was slow to grasp the practical 
importance of an issue which became so acute 




Alexander Hamilton 



1 The many complications with France and Spain as 
well as Engfland which confronted the American Peace 
Commission are described in Winsor's *' Narrative and 
Critical History," Vol. VII, chap. ii. 



66 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

in the West as early as 1793 that Kentuck- 
ians, as we have seen, advocated a resort to 
force and were ready to follow the counsels 
of Genet. 

In the East the Mississippi question was 
utilized by the Federalists in the first year of 
the century as political capital. Their bitter 
opposition to Jefferson, who became President 
on March 4, 1801, led them to exult in the 
dilemma which seemed forced upon him the 
following year. On the one hand there was 
an increasing possibility of war with France ; 
on the other, if the government failed to sup- 
port the demands of the West and South, there 
was a prospect of their secession and the dis- 
solution of the Union. Jefferson's supporters, 
the Republicans, argued for negotiation rather 
than war. They pointed to the success of 
Washington's diplomacy in averting another 
war with England in 1794, and John Adams's 
avoidance of a general war with France. It 
was a situation in which an impetuous chief 
executive might have precipitated a war. 
Jefferson was emphatically a man of peace. 



LOUISIANA AN ACTIVE ISSUE 67 

When Congress met in December, 1802, 
the President's annual message was awaited 
with intense eagerness ; but it was absolutely 
pacific. This was not due to indifference. 
Jefferson had proved his interest in the 
West. It was in January, 1802, that his 
minister to France, Robert R. Livingston, 
learned of the secret treaty by which Spain 
retroceded Louisiana to France, a cession at 
first denied by Talley- y 17 
rand. In May, Madison, /^^j^^£r^4/^ 
Jefferson's secretary of ^ 

, . ... ; X • Livingston's Autograph 

state, was writing to Liv- 
ingston regarding the menace of the cession, 
and transmitting Jefferson's instructions for 
the acquisition from Spain of New Orleans and 
the territory east of the Mississippi in case the 
cession to France had not been accomplished. 
In Paris Livingston followed closely the de- 
velopment of Napoleon's plans and labored to 
find a way of carrying out his instructions. In 
Washington Jefferson's peaceful and cautious 
policy influenced Congress at the outset to 
leave matters in his hands. But in the West 



68 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



and in the South peace was unknown. The 
news of the retrocession of Louisiana and the 
suspension of the right of deposit for Ameri- 
can goods at New Orleans by the Spanish in- 
tendant, Morales, brought an outbreak which 




James Monroe 



compelled recognition. Remonstrances and 
memorials were circulated through the West. 
State legislatures called for action. Troops 
were demanded to oppose the first attempt 



LOUISIANA AN ACTIVE ISSUE 69 

of the French to land at New Orleans. The 
West and the South clamored for freedom of 
trade, even at the cost of war. 

It became inevitable that the government 
should take action. Jefferson appointed James 
Monroe as a special envoy to Paris with power 
to buy New Orleans and the Floridas for 
$2,000,000.^ Here was the American begin- 
ning of the negotiations, which were intended 
to effect only the purchase of New Orleans and 
the Floridas.^ It is true, however, that the 

1 Jan 11, 1803. 
Gentlemen of the Senate : 

. . . While my confidence in our minister plenipotentiary 
at Paris is entire & undiminished, I still think that these 
objects might be promoted by joining with him a person 
sent from here directly. . . . 

1 therefore nominate Robert R. Livingston to be minister 
plenipotentiary, & James Monroe to be minister extraordi- 
nary & plenipotentiary, with full powers to both ... or to 
either ... to enter into a treaty or convention ... for the 
purpose of enlarging & more effectually securing our rights 
& interests in the river Mississippi & in the territories east- 
ward thereof rj.^ Jefferson 

(State Papers. For. Rel., Vol. II, p. 475.) 

2 It was not then known that France had acquired only 
Louisiana. 



70 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

farsiglited Livingston proposed that France 
should cede the Louisiana territory above the 
Arkansas River, but this was an idea of his 
own, and the instructions given by Jefferson 
were narrowly limited, as we have seen.^ 

The earnestness and ability with which 
Livingston labored in Paris to secure the 
Floridas and New Orleans and the free use of 
the Mississippi seemed to be poorly rewarded 
by the appointment of Monroe as a special 
commissioner to do practically what he was 
already trying to bring about. But the seri- 
ousness of the situation justified a special 
appointment, and it was Livingston after all 
who held the larger part in the negotiations. 
Meantime Livingston argued his case with 
Talleyrand, with Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's 

^ Jefferson's views at this stage are shown in a letter 
written to Monroe, January 13, 1803. " On the event of this 
mission depend the future destinies of the Republic. If we 
cannot by a purchase of the country, insure to ourselves a 
course of perpetual peace and friendship with all nations, 
then, as war cannot be far distant it behooves us to be 
immediately preparing for that course, without however 
hastening it ; and it may be necessary, on your failure on 
the Continent, to cross the Channel." 



LOUISIANA AN ACTIVE ISSUE 71 

brother, and with Barbe-Marbois, minister of 
the treasury. He boldly predicted a rupture 
with the United States in case France should 
occupy Louisiana and hold the mouth of the 
Mississippi and the Floridas. 

For a long time his arguments seemed 
to carry little weight, but on April 11, 1803, 
Talleyrand met him with the startling propo- 
sition that the United States should buy the 
whole of Louisiana. This was not the plan of 
Jefferson ; it was not the purpose of Living- 
ston. Napoleon himself, in his usual arbi- 
trary fashion, had changed his purpose and 
decided to offer the whole of the great 
Louisiana territory to the United States.^ 

1 Disgust at the disastrous campaign in San Domingo, 
anger with Spain, a desire to be free for new campaigns in 
Europe, and a wish to be rid of the whole irritating subject 
of Louisiana are cited by Henry Adams as among the prob- 
able motives for Napoleon's change of mind. An essential 
motive was evidently due to the likelihood of a combina- 
tion of England and the United States against France in 
case he occupied Louisiana. The result might well have 
been the exhaustion of France and the downfall of Napo- 
leon long before Waterloo, with radical changes in European 
history and probably in our own. 



72 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Livingston's description of this remarkable 
event is quoted from a letter to Madison. 
" M. Talleyrand asked me this day when 
pressing the subject whether we wished to 
have the whole of Louisiana. I told him no ; 
that our wishes extended only to New Orleans 
and the Floridas ; that the policy of France, 
however, should dictate (as I had shown in 
an official note) to give us the country above 
the river Arkansas, in order to place a barrier 
between them and Canada. He said that if 
they gave New Orleans the rest would be of 
little value, and that he would wish to know 
' what we would give for the whole.' I told 
him it was a subject I had not thought of, 
but that I supposed we should not object to 
twenty millions [francs, — about $4,000,000] 
provided our citizens were paid. He said this 
was too low an offer and he would be glad if 
I would reflect upon it and tell him to-morrow. 
I told him that as Mr. Monroe would be in 
town in two days, I would delay my further 
offer until I had the pleasure of introducing 
him." 




Napoleon as First Consul 



LOUISIANA AN ACTIVE ISSUE 73 

Leaving the American negotiations for a mo- 
ment, it is worth while to go behind the scenes. 
First,, Napoleon confided his purpose to Talley- 
rand, and later, on April 10, to Marbois and 
another of his ministers. The next day, a few 
hours before Talleyrand met Livingston, Napo- 
leon summoned Marbois. In his usual peremp- 
tory fashion he exclaimed: "Irresolution and 
deliberation are no longer in season ; I renounce 
Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I 
cede ; it is the whole colony, without reserve. 
I know the price of what I abandon. I have 
proved the importance I attach to this prov- 
ince, since my first diplomatic act with Spain 
had the object of recovering it. I renounce 
it with the greatest regret; to attempt obsti- 
nately to retain it would be folly. I direct 
you to negotiate the affair. Have an inter- 
view this very day with Mr. Livingston." ^ 

But it was Talleyrand, as we have seen, and 
not Marbois, who a few hours later startled 
Livingston with this unexpected change. 

^ For a full account of these negotiations see '< History 
of the United States of America," by Henry Adams, Vol. H. 



74 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

While the matter remained unsettled, there 
were not only the chances of discovery and 
opposition by Spain, and of irritation and 
change of plan on Napoleon's part, but there 
was also the pressure brought to bear by 
Napoleon's brothers, to prevent this sacrifice 
of French pride and possessions. His broth- 
ers Lucien and Joseph heard the news with 
astonishment and indignation. Summoning 
their courage they went to the Tuileries to 
protest, and were admitted to find the impe- 
rious ruler in his bath. Napoleon announced 
his purpose of selling Louisiana. " What do 
you think of it? " he asked Lucien. '' I flatter 
myself," replied Lucien, " that the Chambers 
will not give their consent." 

The First Consul retorted from his bath tub 
that he would do without their consent. 

Joseph threatened to oppose him in the 
Chambers. He declared that they would all 
be punished by an indignant people. At this 
reply Napoleon lost his temper. " You are 
insolent ! " he shouted, starting up, and then 
suddenly plunging back into his bath with 



LOUISIANA AN ACTIVE ISSUE 75 

a violence that sent the water flying into 
the faces of Lucien and Joseph. A servant 
who was present, frightened at the scene, fell 
fainting on the floor. Such was the stormy 
reception of Napoleon's decision in his own 
family. But he declared that his purpose 
was fixed in spite of the Constitution or the 
Chambers. And at the last NajDoleon threat- 
ened Lucien, who lingered alone to maintain 
the argument, that if the latter undertook open 
opposition he would break him like the snuff- 
box which he hurled angrily upon the floor. 
And so the Napoleonic will prevailed.^ 

It has been said that the disregard of legal 
authority and of the wishes of the French peo- 
ple involved in this arbitrary decision marked 
a turning point in Napoleon's career. His act 
has been called a betrayal of his country. Yet 
after this he became the Emperor of France, 
and the most powerful single figure of his time. 

1 This amusing and yet serious bath-room scene is de- 
scribed in full in " Lucien Bonaparte et ses M^moires," and 
summarized by Henry Adams, and by Dr. J. K. Hosmer in 
the latter's " History of the Louisiana Purchase." 



CHAPTER VII 
THE PURCHASE ARRANGED 

Closing the bargain. The terms of payment. What was bought. 
Questions as to West Florida. The news in the United 
States. Federalist opposition. Debates over the right to 
buy and rule foreign territory. The treaty ratified. Provi- 
sions for government. 

It was on April 11 that Livingston was sur- 
prised by Talleyrand's offer of the whole of 
Louisiana. The next day Livingston, recov- 
ering from his astonishment, endeavored to 
arrange the matter definitely, but the wily 
Talleyrand delayed lest he should cheapen 
the bargain by seeming too eager. Livingston 
was anxious to carry the affair as far as pos- 
sible before Monroe took part. 

After Monroe arrived, there followed a 
period of haggling over the price and terms. 
The price first mentioned on the French side 
was a hundred million francs ($20,000,000), 

76 



THE PURCHASE AKKANGED 77 

with a provision that the United States should 
pay the claims of American citizens against 
France for depredations by French privateers, 
which amounted to twenty million francs 
($4,000,000). Then Marbois, who presented 
this oft'er, dropped to eighty million francs 
($16,000,000) for the territory and the claims. 
Finally, on April 29, the Americans agreed 
to Marbois's terms. The next day, April 30, 
their agreement was submitted to Napoleon. 
April 30 was adopted as the date of the treaty 
of cession and the convention regarding the 
payments, although the documents were not 
actually signed until a few days later. ^ 

One curious feature of this checkered history 
is that the exact boundaries of the purchased 
territory were unknown. The treaty simply 
described the province of Louisiana " with the 

^ With this the work of the American negotiators was 
practically ended. Livingston resigned his post the next 
year and retired from public life ; but the rest of his 
days were full of a usefulness which included his encour- 
agement of Robert Fulton, the father of the steamboat. 
Monroe, continuing in public life, rose to the presidency of 
the United States. 



78 LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 

same extent" that it had under Spain and ear- 
her under France. The eastern boundary was 
the Mississippi from its source to the parallel 
of thirty-one degrees ; but no one knew where 
the source was, and the eastern boundary below 
thirty-one degrees was in question, although 
the Americans claimed the country as far as 
the Perdido River.^ The western boundary 
was supposed to be the mountains, although 
little was known regarding them ; and the 
northern limit was the ill-defined possessions 
of Great Britain. 

What was bought, therefore, was a vast ex- 
panse of territory whose precise limits no one 
knew. Again, the Floridas were not mentioned 
in the treaty because they had not been ceded 
by Spain, although the acquisition of West 
Florida from the Mississippi to the river Per- 
dido was part of the original American plan. 
All that the commissioners obtained was 
a verbal promise from Napoleon to use his 
good offices with Spain in helping the United 
States to gain West Florida. The Americans 

^ Now the boundary between Florida and Alabama. 



THE PUECHASE AERANGED 79 

claimed West Florida as included in the sale 
under the French title. The claim was denied 
by Spain, but in 1810 a successful local revo- 
lution against Spain resulted in the formal 
annexation of West Florida to the United 
States. 

The exact cost of the Louisiana territory 
was sixty-four million francs, in the form of 
United States six per cent bonds, representing 
a capital of $11,250,000.^ In addition to this 
the American government agreed to assume 
and pay the obligations of France to American 
citizens for French attacks upon American 
shipping. These were estimated at twenty 
million francs, or $3,750,000, making the total 
payment $15,000,000. Troubles and scandals 
arose from the settlement of these claims, but 
that forms no part of this history. 

With the money paid for the Louisiana ter- 
ritory Napoleon had intended to construct a 
system of canals ; but war broke out almost 

^ The ultimate cost would include not only the par value 
of the bonds but also ten years' interest and the costs of sur- 
veying, of government explorations, and of selling lands, etc. 



80 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

immediately, and by another of the curious 
turns of fate which accompanied the whole 
affair, this money was spent by Napoleon 
in preparations for an invasion of England 
which never took place. 

President Jefferson had hoped to secure 
New Orleans and West Florida at a cost of 
not more than $2,000,000. But there came 
from Paris the astonishing tidings that the 
commissioners had bought the whole Louisi- 
ana territory and had agreed to pay $15,000,- 
000. The great news was promptly seized upon 
by the politicians and the people. The party 
opposed to Jefferson, the Federalists, attacked 
the purchase. They ridiculed the vague stories 
told of the unknown interior, and condemned 
the acquisition of a wilderness ; but by the 
majority of the people the purchase was 
approved. Nevertheless, there were new and 
serious questions to be settled concerning 
the rights and powers of the United States 
as regarded the acquisition of foreign terri- 
tory and its government. They were ques- 
tions not unlike those discussed when the 



THE PUECHASE AERANGED 81 

United States, after the late war with Spain, 
acquired the Philippines and Porto Rico. 




Thomas Jefferson 



In October, 1803, Congress met. Jefferson 
himself was a strict constructionist of the Con- 
stitution, and believed in states rights. He 



82 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

held that Congress had only such powers as 
were definitely delegated to it and such as were 
necessary to carry out the delegated powers. 
He believed that this treaty providing for the 
incorporation of foreign territory was in vio- 
lation of the Constitution. He held at first 
that an amendment to the Constitution would 
be necessary before action could be taken 
upon the treaty. But he was confronted with 
a practical issue of grave and immediate mo- 
ment. Statesmen holding views as extreme 
as his own argued for the constitutionality of 
the acquisition. Jefferson yielded his opinions 
to the practical exigencies of the situation, 
believing, as was the case, that the popular 
view would approve his course. Federalists, 
as well as Republicans, agreed that the United 
States could acquire territory.^ 

As to the status of the inhabitants of 
the Louisiana territory, another question was 

' Later the right to annex territory was upheld by the 
Supreme Court. Professor McLaughlin, " History of the 
American Nation," p. 264, cites the case of Am. Ins. Co. v. 
Canter, 1 Peters, 511. 



THE PURCHASE AREANGED 83 

presented which was seized upon by the Fed- 
eralists. The treaty contemplated their early 
admission to the rights of citizens of the 
United States, — Louisiana was not to be a 
dependent colony, without a vote or the pros- 
pect of statehood. This was bitterly opposed 
by the Federalists. It was argued that the 
vote of each individual state was necessary 
for the admission of a new state. The New 
England Federalists, foreseeing a lessening of 
their power through the admission of south- 
ern and western states, were strenuous antag- 
onists of the measure. In some cases there 
was talk of secession. 

Again the treaty gave special privileges 
to the vessels of France and Spain at New 
Orleans, although the Constitution required 
that duties should be uniform. This was 
defended by the claim that ^^ Louisiana is 
purchased by the United States in their 
federal capacity, and is in the nature of a 
colony whose commerce may be regulated 
without reference to the Constitution." The 
far-reaching importance of these arguments, 



84 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

and of the precedent established by the ratifi- 
cation of the treaty, has been illustrated in 
the discussions over the recent acquisition of 
Porto Rico and the Philippines.^ The discus- 
sion of these questions was long and bitter, but 
the treaty was ratified October 19, 1803. 

After the treaty was ratified and the bill to 
provide payment for the purchase was passed 
still another question arose, — How should the 
territory be governed ? In spite of Federalist 
opposition it was voted that until Congress 
should provide a temporary government all 
the military, civil, and judicial powers should 
be exercised by persons to be appointed by the 
President, without the advice or consent of 

1 " This broad interpretation of the treaty-making power 
by the strict constructionist and state rights party itself, 
paved the way for an imperial expansion of the United 
States. Not only that, — it laid the foundations for a 
readjustment of sectional power within the Union." — 
Professor Frederick J. Turner, in the Review of Reviews 
(May, 1903). This article, which, has been consulted in 
the preparation of this chapter, in addition to Adams, 
McMaster, and others, is a remarkably clear and concise 
presentation of political and constitutional phases of the 
purchase. 



THE PUECHASE AKKANGED 85 

the Senate. This act was approved by the 
President on October 31, 1803. It was a 
temporary measure intended to apply to the 
taking possession of the new country rather 
than to its permanent occupation. The for- 
mal act of taking over Louisiana was the 
next step in this eventful history. 



CHAPTER VIII 
TEANSFEE TO THE UNITED STATES 

Louisiana still in Spain's hands. Delivery to France. Cession 
by France to the United States. A country without gov- 
ernment. Congress gives the President power. Importance 
of the precedents. The territory divided. A last foreign 
invasion. 

Another curious feature of this history is 
that although France had sold Louisiana to the 
United States, it had not yet been delivered by 
Spain to France. On the 30th of November, 
1803, however, this ceremony was formally per- 
formed in the old Cabildo (City Hall) of New 
Orleans. The French commissioner, Laussat, 
delivered to the Spanish commissioners the 
order of the king of Spain for the transfer of 
the province to France, and showed the author- 
ity which Napoleon had given him to receive 
it. Then the Spaniards yielded the keys of 
New Orleans and absolved the people from 



TEANSFER TO UNITED STATES 87 

allegiance to Spain. The Spanish flag was low- 
ered, the French tricolor rose in its place, and 
the reign of Spain in Louisiana was ended. 

The next step was the formal cession to 
the United States, and there were reasons for 
haste. Spain had protested against the act of 
France in selling the territory, for there was 
a clause in the original treaty which forbade 
its alienation.^ These protests were so strong 

^An interesting modern Spanish view of the Louisiana 
Purchase has been afforded by Senor Jeronimo Becker, 
archivist of the ministry of state, in La Espana Moderna for 
May, 1903. This writer maintains that after securing the 
cession of Louisiana back to France, Talleyrand assured the 
Spanish government that the cession was desired merely for 
display and effect, and that later, on the payment of two 
million dollars, half in cash, Louisiana would be returned 
to Spain. 

Senor Becker also states that in 1815 the Spanish govern- 
ment hoped to regain Louisiana through the action of the 
Congress of Vienna, and Labrador, the Spanish representa- 
tive, was instructed to make the attempt. He saw that this 
was impossible, but it was believed in Vienna in 1815 that 
the English M^ere in possession of New Orleans and therefore 
practically of Louisiana, and he suggested that they might 
be willing to transfer it to Spain, — a plan, he added, which 
was approved by the Duke of Wellington. Senor Becker 
expresses a feeling of inherited resentment against France 
on account of the sharp practice by which Napoleon obtained 



88 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

that Jefferson even prepared to meet an armed 
resistance by sending a small military force un- 
der General James Wilkinson^ to New Orleans. 
Furthermore, in this interval there was no 
formal government in that city. 

Jefferson appointed William CO. Claiborne, 
governor of Mississippi territory, and General 
Wilkinson as the American commissioners to 
receive Louisiana. On December 20 they were 

^ Wilkinson's Autograph 

escorted into the city by American troops and 
were received by Laussat in the Cabildo. The 
ceremonies performed at the Spanish cession 
twenty days before were repeated now for the 

Louisiana from Spain in exchange for the award to the 
Duke of Parma of the so-called kingdom of Etruria, which 
remained under the control of French soldiers after Napoleon 
had sold Louisiana to the Americans and the Americans 
were claiming the Floridas. But he shows no ill-will at the 
action of the United States. 

^ An unfortunate representative of the United States. 
His apparent willingness to prove false to his country in 
connection with Burr's plottings, and his military incom- 
petency, have not been palliated by his acquittals. 



TRANSFER TO UNITED STATES 89 

most part, with one vital difference. This time 
the flag of France was replaced with the Stars 
and Stripes. It was the outward sign of a new 
destiny, the beginning of a new life richer and 
greater than any one who watched the unfurl- 
ing of the flag could have dared to imagine. 

Claiborne assmed the people that their lib- 
erty, property, and religion were safe, and that 
they should never again be transferred. His 
assurance must have meant little to his hear- 
ers, in view of the many changes of the past. 

Claiborne's Autograph 

"Ninety-one years before," says Professor Mc- 
Master, "when scarcely a thousand white men 
dwelt on her soil, Louis XIV had farmed 
Louisiana to Antoine Crozat, the merchant 
monopolist of his day. Crozat, unable to use 
it, made it over in 1717 to John Law, director- 
general of the Mississippi Company, which 
surrendered it in 1731 to Louis XV, who gave 
it in 1762 to the king of Spain, who made it 



90 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

over to Napoleon, who sold it to the United 
States." No wonder a promise that there would 
be no more changes was received with doubt. 
Yet, except foi- a short interval of fifteen 
months in the course of the Civil War, the 
Stars and Stripes have continued to wave 
over New Orleans. 

For a short time Louisiana, although Amer- 
ican territory, was without American laws 
or custom-house regulations. The merchants 
found themselves continuing to pay the ob- 
noxious duties exacted by the laws of Spain, 
and they were not slow to protest. But early 
in 1804 Congress took action. After much 
discussion a law was passed dividing the pur- 
chased country at the thirty-third parallel, 
which afterward became the dividing line 
between Arkansas and Louisiana. The coun- 
try north of that line was called the district 
of Louisiana, and was placed under the terri- 
torial government of the Indiana territory. 
There were but few white people then in this 
great stretch of country, but lower Louisiana, 
which was called the territory of Orleans, 



TRANSFER TO UNITED STATES 91 

contained some fifty thousand people, or more 
than the territory of Ohio in 1800. 

It was provided that the territory of Orleans 
was to be governed by officers appointed by 
the President. This was a step of great his- 
torical importance. First, the President had 
bought a foreign colony without its consent 
and had annexed it. Secondly, he assumed 
control of its government, and in both meas- 
ures he was sustained by Congress. This 
was done without any changes in the Con- 
stitution. Another striking feature was that, 
although the treaty with France provided for 
full citizenship for the people of the Louisiana 
territory, this was denied them, and a govern- 
ment was established which was not elected 
by themselves but appointed from Washington. 
However, in spite of the surprises, the contra- 
dictions and compromises which accompanied 
the strange history of Louisiana, it became and 
it has remained American territory. 

Only once, since it passed into our keeping, 
has Louisiana been threatened by a foreign 
invader. This was in 1815, at the end of our 



92 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



war with England. But Sir Edward Paken- 
ham's army of twenty thousand veteran British 
soldiers, who came to conquer Louisiana, was 




Andrew Jackson riding along the Lines after the 
Battle of New Orleans 

defeated by the forces led by Andrew Jackson 
in the battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. 
As if to continue the list of strange events 
which have been connected with Louisiana, this 



TEANSFER TO UNITED STATES 93 

battle was fought after peace had been arranged 
between the United States and Great Britain. 
Two other events in our domestic history 
have menaced the integrity of Louisiana. 
Associated with the pacific Jefferson as Vice 
President was the brilliant, unscrupulous, and 
tragic figure of Aaron Burr. Burr's connec- 
tion with the President who acquired Loui- 
siana added another dramatic element to the 
history of plots which involved the West. As 
to the exact nature of Burr's schemes or con- 
spiracy in 1805-1806, students have differed. 
The usual belief has been that Burr, spurred 
by diseased ambition and wounded vanity, 
planned the separation of the Southwest from 
the United States and the foundation of an 
empire under his own rule.^ Later researches ^ 
go to indicate that Burr proposed to organize 
a filibustering expedition for the invasion and 
occupation of the Spanish territory to the 

^ See " History of the United States of America," by 
Henry Adams, for the argument that Burr proposed both 
treason to his country and filibustering. 

* See " The Aaron Burr Conspiracy," by Dr. W. F. 
McCaleb. 



94 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

south. At the outset, at least, Burr's designs 
were probably little better than treason, 
although his final purpose seems to have 
changed. Another figure in the history of 
Louisiana, Wilkinson, who was governor of 
New Orleans, was implicated in Burr's plots 
and sought to clear himself at Burr s expense. 
While this plot, however, left the Loui- 
siana Purchase unchanged, our Civil War 
made an inroad, fortunately only temporary, 
upon its integrity. In the fateful spring of 
1861 the states of Louisiana and Arkansas 
seceded from the Union and joined the Con- 
federacy. But in 1868 the constitutional rela- 
tions of these states to the Union were fully 
reestablished, and since then there has been 
and is likely to be no break in the relation 
of Louisiana to the United States. 



LOUISIANA 



Part II 
THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 



CHAPTER IX 
EXPLOEING LOUISIANA 

An unknown interior. Jefferson's early interest in explora- 
tion. Ledyard's vain attempt. Jefferson selects Lewis 
and Clark. Who they were. Their instructions. The un- 
certainty as to their route. 

The little that had been learned by 1803 
of the interior of Louisiana came for the most 
part from the stories of Indians and of trap- 
pers. There were tales of vast prairies far 
in the interior, covered with herds of buffalo, 
and clothed with grass " because the soil was 
far too rich for the growth of trees." In 
the north, as Jefferson reported to Congress, 
there were great bluffs which were " faced with 
lime and free stone, carved into various shapes 
and figures by the hand of nature, and [they] 
afford the appearance of a multitude of antique 
towers." While this report was true, since it 
referred to the strange rock forms of the Bad 

97 



98 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



Lands of Dakota, it was laughed at by Jeffer- 
son's opponents. 

Another story that Jefferson gravely repeated 
to Congress was of a wonderful mountain of 




Bad Lands of Dakota 

salt some thousand miles up the Missouri. It 
was said that this mountain was one hun- 
dred and eighty miles long and forty-five miles 
wide; that there were no trees or shrubs on 
it, but that it was one huge mass of glittering 
white. If any one doubted this fabulous tale, 
he was assured that samples of the salt had 
been shown at St. Louis. Even this failed to 



EXPLORING LOUISIANA 99 

convince Jefferson's opponents, the Federal- 
ists. One newspaper writer suggested that the 
salt mountain was Lot's wife. Another writer 
imagined a salt eagle on the top and a salt 
mammoth climhing up the side. There were 
other stories of giant Indians as mythical as 
the salt mountain. From these strange reports 
one can realize how little was known of a part 
of our country which is now so familiar. 

We have seen that Jefferson did not intend 
to buy the whole Louisiana territory, but he 
proposed an exploration of the West long be- 
fore the purchase was made. In 1785 he w^as 
appointed minister to France, and in Paris 
he met John Ledyard, an American traveler. 
Ledyard had accompanied the famous naviga- 
tor. Captain Cook, on his last voyage, when 
Cook sailed up the western coast of North 
America toward Bering Strait, and then sailed 
south to Hawaii, where he was slain by the 
natives. Ledyard was eager to continue his 
travels, and Jeiferson proposed that he should 
cross northern Europe and Asia to Kamchatka, 
sail over to tjie present Alaska, and then go 



100 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

south "to the latitude of the Missouri and 
penetrate to and through that to the United 
States." Jefferson's language shows how un- 
certain the knowledge of the time was. No 
one knew where the Missouri River began. 
Ledyard undertook this adventurous journey, 
and on his overland route actually arrived 
within two hundred miles of Kamchatka ; but 
there he was arrested by Russian soldiers and 
forced to return. This was the end of a plan 
which might have added a wonderful chapter 
to the history of American exploration. 

But Jefferson's zealous desire for a knowl- 
edge of the West continued unabated. In 1792 
he proposed to the American Philosophical 
Society to raise money for an exploration of 
the West. He suggested that some one should 
do this by " ascending the Missouri, crossing 
the Stony [Rocky] Mountains, and descend- 
ing the nearest river to the Pacific." This 
suggestion brought a prompt application from 
Captain Meriwether Lewis, of the United States 
army, who was eager to make the journey. 
But Captain Lewis's time had not yet come. 



li>u»Massrf'A-u* j,Tft..^*-'^wirfjs^'^ >i 




Meriwether Lewis 

(From a print in the Analectic Magazine (1815) reproducing the drawing 
by St. Merain, which belonged to Captain Clark) 



EXPLORING LOUISIANA 101 

The offer of Andre Micliaux, a French botanist, 
was accepted, and he actually started on his 
journey. But when he had reached Kentucky 
on his way west he was overtaken by an 
order from the French minister, directing him 
to return and engage in other work. Thus 
Jelferson's second attempt at the exploration 
of the Louisiana territory also resulted in 
failure. 

But the proverbial third attempt succeeded 
brilliantly. Before the Louisiana territory had 
actually passed into our hands Jefferson and 
others felt that it was quite time to learn more 
definitely what this strange country contained. 
In January, 1803, he seized the opportunity 
offered by the need of regulating trade with 
the Indians, to send a confidential message to 
Congress, in which he advised an exploration. 
Congress approved, and an appropriation of 
money was made. President Jefferson selected 
Captain Lewis as leader of the expedition and 
associated with him Captain William Clark.^ 

1 Meriwether Lewis was ])orn near Charlottesville, Vir- 
ginia, in 1774. At eighteen he was a farmer. In 1794 he 



102 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

There were, therefore, two leaders, but they 
did their memorable work without jealousy 
or trouble. Both were men of courage and 
resolution, fully equipped by character and 
training for the work which lay before them. 
Lewis possessed a rare power of discipline and 
executive ability, and a considerable scientific 
knowledge. Clark was peculiarly familiar 
with Indian habits, and his military training 
had borne good fruits. 

served in the militia during the " whisky insurrection," and 
later obtained a commission in the regular army. Between 
1801 and 1803 he was the private secretary of President 
Jefferson. In 1806 he was made governor of Missouri ter- 
ritory. He died in 1809. 

William Clark, also a Virginian, was born in 1770, the 
brother of General George Rogers Clark who conquered the 
old Northwest for the United States in the Revolutionary 
War. In the boyhood of William Clark his family removed 
to Kentucky, then " the dark and bloody ground," as it was 
called from the frequent attacks of the Indians. With 
such an early experience it was not strange that Clark 
should become a soldier. But in 1796 he resigned from the 
army on account of ill health. He took up his residence in 
St. Louis, where he lived until President Jefferson offered 
him, in 1803, a military appointment as second lieutenant 
in the regular army and the joint command of the expe- 
dition. The title of captain came from his former rank 
in the militia of the Northwest. 



EXPLOEING LOUISIANA 103 

Among the careful instructions given to 
Lewis and Clark we find that they were " to 
explore the Missouri River and such principal 
streams of it, as by its course and communi- 
cation with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, 
whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado, or 
any other river, may offer the most direct 
and practicable water-communication across 
the continent, for the purposes of commerce." 
Since the Missouri rises east of the Rocky 
Mountains, the Colorado far to the southward, 
and the Columbia flows to the Pacific on the 
western side of the mountains, Jefferson's 
words illustrate the vague knowledge of the 
time. 

The explorers were to take frequent obser- 
vations of latitude and longitude and to note 
the courses of the river, points of portage, and 
all important features. Several copies of these 
observations were to be made. The thought- 
ful Jefferson recommended that one copy be on 
" the cuticular membrane of the paper-birch, as 
less liable to injury from damp than common 
paper." 



104 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Every feature of Indian life was to be studied 
with the greatest care. The explorers were to 
note the soil and face of the country, its vege- 
table products, its animals, the remains of any 
animals " which may be deemed dead or ex- 
tinct,"^ the mineral productions of every kind, 
volcanic appearances, and climate. They were 
to investigate the opportunities for trade and 
cultivate the friendship of the Indians. On 
the Pacific coast they w^ere to see whether the 
fur trade of the far Northwest could not be 
conducted through the Missouri and tlie United 
States instead of by circumnavigation from 
Nootka Sound on the Pacific coast. 

Clearly, the explorers had plenty of work 
laid out for tliem. How uncertain the outcome 
was in Jefferson's mind is shown by his direc- 
tions that they should return from Oregon 
by sea, '^ by the w^ay either of Cape Horn or 
the Cape of Good Hope," in case the return 
overland seemed " imminently dangerous." 

1 This is peculiarly interesting in view of the wonderful 
fossil remains found of late years in the Bad Lands of 
Dakota and elsewhere in the Northwest. 



EXPLOEING LOUISIANA 105 

Furthermore, he said, the American consuls at 
Batavia in Java, in the Isle of France, and at 
the Cape of Good Hope would furnish money. 
When we think of the present ease and luxury 
of travel across the continent to Oregon it is 
hard to realize that these doubts and difficul- 
ties existed only a hundred years ago. 



CHAPTER X 

PKEPAPvING FOE THE JOURXEY 

An uninformed Spaniard. A company of picked men. Some 
curious supplies. The journal of the expedition. 

On July 5, 1803, Captain Lewis left Wash- 
ington for Pittsburg. With Captain Clark he 
gathered stores and recruited his men from the 
military stations along the Ohio River. All 
this took time. It was not until December 
that they reached St. Louis. They intended 
to pass the winter at La Charrette, the upper- 
most settlement on the Missouri. But this 
was still held by the Spaniards. Although 
Louisiana by this time had passed from Spain 
to France and from France to the United 
States, the Spanish commandant had not yet 
been officially notified. At that day, when 
railroads were unknown, it required a month 
and a half for letters from eastern cities to 

106 



peepari:ng foe the joueney 107 



reach St. Louis. The commandant refused 
to allow this armed force to enter Spanish ter- 
ritory. Lewis and Clark therefore recrossed 
the Mississippi to the eastern or American 
side, and passed the winter of 1803-1804 at 







Washington One Hundred Years ago 

the mouth of Wood River, a little above 
St. Louis. While they are waiting there we 
may inspect their force and their equipment 
for the great journey which lay before them. 

Picked men were needed for such perilous 
work. They were chosen wisely with a view 



108 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

to their special fitness for the task. There were 
fourteen soldiers selected from a large number 
who had volunteered from the regular army. 
There were nine young frontiersmen from 
Kentucky, men who had used the rifle from 
boyhood in hunting and in Indian warfare. 
There were two French canoemen, or voya- 
geurs, one of whom could speak many Indian 
languages, while the other was a skilled hunter. 
These men were all enrolled as privates in the 
army, and with a negro servant of Captain 
Clark they made up the force. Three of the 
men were appointed sergeants. In addition, 
a corporal and six soldiers with nine boatmen 
were sent to accompany the expedition until 
they should reach the Mandan Indians, who 
dwelt near the present site of Bismarck, North 
Dakota. It was a small force, but a large com- 
pany would have had difficulties over supplies, 
and would have excited the suspicions and hos- 
tility of the Indians. 

The first necessities were food, clothing, 
tools, the flintlock rifles of the time, and a 
supply of powder, ball, and flints. But it was 




French Fort at Saint Louis 



PREPARING FOR THE JOURNEY 109 

necessary also to provide for the Indians 
who might be encountered. In order to make 
friends of them there were fourteen bales and 
one box of gold-laced coats, medals, flags, 
knives and tomahawks, beads, looking-glasses, 
and paints, which were to be given as presents. 
The expedition's own stores were contained 
in seven bales and a box. 

For transportation there was first a keel boat 
fifty-five feet long and drawing three feet of 
water. This was decked over at bow and 
stern, thus forming a forecastle and a cabin. 
The middle was covered with lockers, which 
could be raised to form breastworks in case 
of attack. This boat had one large sail and 
twenty-two oars. Tiiere were two other boats, 
both open, one with six and one with seven 
oars. Two horses were to be led along the 
banks for the use of the hunters. 

One of the strange turns of fate which 
appear so often in the history of Louisiana 
awaited the records of this expedition. The 
journals of the explorers were kept most care- 
fully. President Jefferson used some of this 



110 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

material in his messages to Congress, and his 
citations were republished mider a false claim 
that they gave the complete narrative. The 
actual journals were revised and largely re- 
written by Nicholas Biddle of Pliiladelphia, 
but it so happened that another was able to 
claim the editorship, and they were published 
in 1814 with the name of Paul Allen on the 
title-page as editor. This Biddle edition was 
republished in several foreign countries. The 
story of the Lewis and Clark expedition, as told 
in this volume, is taken from the Biddle text.^ 

^ There have been many different editions, ranging from 
the elaborate and carefully annotated edition of Dr. Elliott 
Coues, to inexpensive small reprints. An abridged edition 
was published at New York in 1842 and reprinted several 
times. Mention should be made of William R. Lighton's 
excellent " Lewis and Clark," and the useful condensed 
narrative prepared by the late Noah Brooks in 1901. 

But with all this array of editions it has so happened 
that the revised Biddle text has always been followed. 
The original journals have not been reprinted as the 
explorers wrote them, although Mr. Reuben G. Thwaites 
is now engaged in preparing them for publication. 



CHAPTER XI 
STARTING FOR THE WILDERNESS 

Trappers and Indians. Across Missouri. The first sight of 
buffalo. Turning northward. A council with the Indians 
near Council Bluffs. An odd way of fishing. A country- 
full of game. 

On May 14, 1804, the travelers left their 
camp at tlie mouth of the Wood (now the 
Du Bois) River near St. Louis. 

The route before them w^as up the Missouri 
and the Yellowstone on the eastern side of 
the Rocky Mountains, over the mountains and 
down Lewis's River (now known as Salmon 
River), the Clearwater, and the Columbia on 
the western side. The country which they 
were to pass through has since been divided 
into Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South 
Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, Washington, 
and Oregon. The total length of the jour- 
ney was to be some eight thousand miles. 

Ill 



112 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

It was to last from May, 1804, to September, 
1806. From April, 1805, to August, 1806, 
they were to be wholly shut off from the 
civilized world. 

It was not until four o'clock in the after- 
noon of the 14 th that they finished their pack- 
ing and pushed ofic their boats, and they had 
made only four miles when night forced them 
to land for the first camp of the journey near 
Cold Water Creek, just above Bellefontaine. 

At St. Charles, which bears the same name 
to-day, they were overtaken on May 21 by Cap- 
tain Lewis, who had been detained at St. Louis, 
and that afternoon they started on in the face 
of wind and rain. 

A few days later they met some canoes 
laden with furs obtained among the "Mahar," 
or Omaha, Indians. These meetings are of in- 
terest because the trappers and the fur traders 
were the real pioneers of the far West. Their 
work was the chief industry of that great region 
for the first forty years of the last century. 

On June 1 the expedition camped at the 
mouth of the Osage River, named from the 



STARTING FOR THE WILDERNESS 113 

Osage Indians. The Dakotan name of these 
Indians was the Wabashas, from which comes 
the name Wabash. They believed themselves 
descended from a snail and a beaver, and for 
a long time they held the beaver sacred. But 
the demand for furs proved stronger than the 
tradition, and in spite of relationship the bea- 
vers suffered from the fur Inmters. 

Another camp was made at Moreau Creek, a 
little below the present Jefferson City. French 
fur traders were met, and at Little Manitou 
Creek (now Moniteau Creek in Missouri geog- 
raphies) the explorers saw a strange figure 
resembling '^Hhe bust of a man with the horns 
of a stag," which had been painted by the 
Indians on a projecting rock. 

As they went on they entered the country 
of the Ayauway Indians, Avhich was one of 
the many ways of spelling lowas. Here they 
found deer and bears, and one of the hunters 
brought in a remarkable story of a small lake 
where ^' he heard a snake making a guttural 
noise like a turkey." The venison which the 
hunters obtained was frequently "jerked" for 



114 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

preservation ; that is, it was cut into ribbons 
and dried in the sun. 

The expedition had now advanced some 
two hundred and sixty miles up the Missouri, 
to a point between Saline and Carroll counties, 
which lies not far from the center of the state 
of Missouri. Continuing a journey which for 
the time was comparatively uneventful, they 
crossed the state of Missouri on their steady 
way up the river, and on June 26 they reached 
the mouth of the Kansas River, which flows 
easterly through the state of Kansas. Here 
they found a village of Kansas Indians, most 
of whom were away on the plains " hunting 
for buffalo, which our hunters have seen for 
the first time." 

This home of buffalo hunters at the mouth of 
the Kansas River has now given place to Kan- 
sas City, Missouri, and Wyandotte, Kansas. 

At this point the Missouri turns northwest- 
erly on the ascent, and the explorers were on 
a straighter course to their destination. On 
the left, ascending, are now the Kansas coun- 
ties of Leavenworth, Atchison, and Doniphan, 



STARTING FOR THE WILDERNESS 115 

and on the right the Missouri counties of 
Platte, Buchanan, Andrew, and Holt ; wliile 
above Kansas City they passed the sites of 
the future cities of Leavenworth, Atchison, 
and St. Joseph. Nearly all the points men- 
tioned in their narrative have been identified. 




In the Days of thk Buffalo Hunter 

but it will be more interesting to follow the 
story of their adventures than to go far into 
geographical details. 

By the middle of July they had reached 
Nebraska and Iowa. The hunters found deer 
and wild geese, one boat was nearly wrecked 
on a sand bar in a storm, and there was some 



116 • LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

illness which was thought to be due to their 
drinking the muddy river water. On July 21 
they reached the mouth of the great Platte 
River, where at night many wolves were seen 
and heard. 

Some ten miles above the Platte River the 
explorers camped on the east side of the Mis- 
souri, probably about ten miles below the pres- 
ent cities of Council Bluffs and Omaha. There 
they dried their provisions and prepared let- 
ters to be sent to the President when the 
chance came. The hunters saw deer and tur- 
keys; there were many wild grapes, and one 
man caught a white catfish. 

Messengers were sent to ask the Pawnee 
Indians to visit them, but the Indians were 
away hunting the buffalo. A few days later, 
however, after the explorers had advanced 
further northward, they succeeded in reaching 
them, and their first formal council with them 
was held on August 3. Some fourteen Ottoe 
(or Otto) and Missouri Indians were assem- 
bled under an awning formed of the mainsail. 
They were informed that the United States 



STARTING FOR THE AYILDERNESS 117 

now ruled the country and promised them pro- 
tection. The chiefs expressed their joy and 
asked to be commended to the Great Father 
(the President). They requested that arms be 
given them and that they be protected from 
their enemies, the Omahas, which was prom- 
ised. Then followed a distribution of presents, 
medals, paint, garters, and cloth ornaments, 
with a canister of powder and a bottle of 
whisky, — the last certainly an unfortunate 
gift. Then the explorers fired their air gun, 
which astonished the Indians greatly, and this 
ended the ceremonies of the first council. 

The name of the city of Council Bluffs comes 
from this meeting, but the actual council was 
held on the west side of the river and several 
miles above the city. 

A few days later the travelers saw a large 
mound with a pole fixed in the center, on a 
sandstone bluff, and learned that it was the 
grave of a chief named Blackbird, who died 
of smallpox, from which the tribe had suf- 
fered seriously. Blackbird was described by 
another traveler as a chief whose fame was 



118 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

due largely to the fact that he had obtained 
from a trader some arsenic, which he used to 
poison rivals and enemies. 

While the party were camping and waiting 
for a council with the "Mahar" (Omaha) 
Indians, an odd form of fishing was practiced. 
Some of the men made a drag of willows and 
bark and swept the creek hard by, catching 
hundreds of pike, bass, fish resembling salmon 
trout, red horse, buffalo fish, rockfish, perch, 
and catfish. 

The Ottoe Indians of the first council then 
reappeared with others. They were asked to 
explain their trouble with the Omahas, which 
proved to be due to their desire to avenge the 
death of their brethren of the Missouris, who 
had been killed by the Omahas while attempt- 
ing to steal horses. The only result of this 
conference was tlie distribution of more pres- 
ents, since no Omahas had come, and a peace 
could not be arranged without them. 

A little below Sioux City the first death 
occurred in the expedition. Sergeant Charles 
Eloyd died of colic and was buried on a bluff 



STARTING FOR THE WILDERNESS 119 

about a mile below Floyd's River. Patrick 
Gass, who kept a journal of the expedition on 
his own account which was afterwards pub- 
lished, was elected sergeant in Floyd's place. 
Not far from this spot they learned that there 
was a quarry of red pipestone highly prized 
by the Indians for pipes. 

The abundance of game which was then 
found in Nebraska, Iowa, and elsewhere 
along the route, is indicated by the record 
of August 23. "On the north side [this is 
properly the east side of the river] is an exten- 
sive and delightful prairie, which we called 
Buffalo prairie, from our having here killed 
our first buft'alo. Two elk swam the river 
to-day and were fired at, but escaped ; a deer 
was killed from the boat ; one beaver was 
killed, and several prairie-wolves were seen." 



CHAPTER XII 

IN SOUTH DAKOTA 

A haunted mountain. Among the Sioux. A curious frater- 
nity. Some new animals. Trouble with the Tetons. The 
first meeting with the grizzly bear. Reaching the Arik- 
ara i Indians. The approach of cold weather. 

By late August the explorers were entering 
the present South Dakota. There they exam- 
ined a singularly symmetrical mound in the 
middle of the plains. The Indians believed 
this mound to be the abode of little spirits or 
devils not over eighteen inches in height, with 
large heads, and armed with bows and arrows 
which were always ready for use against any 
one who should approach. But Lewis and 
Clark " saw none of these wicked little spirits, 

^ " Aricaris, commonly called Rickarees, Rickrees, or 
Reea. The accepted spelling is now Arikara." — Coues's 
"Lewis and Clark," Vol. I, p. 143. In the journal this 
is spelled Rickara. 

120 



IN SOUTH DAKOTA 



121 



or any place for them except some small 
holes scattered over the top." This tradition 
is preserved in the modern name of Spirit 
Mound, which is in Clay County, South 
Dakota. 

They were in the country of the formidable 
Sioux Indians, and the travelers set the prairie 
on fire as a notifica- 
tion of their coming. 
A few days later Ser- 
geant Pryor and oth- 
ers were sent to the 
Sioux. On his return 
Pryor reported that 
the Sioux received 
them well and wished 
to carry them on a 
buffalo robe, an honor 
which they declined. They were also feasted 
on " a fat dog, already cooked, of which they 
partook heartily." This feast of dog meat 
was to be a frequent experience. 

On August 30 Lewis and Clark received the 
Sioux chiefs and warriors in state, and gave 




Totem of the Sioux 



122 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

them good advice regarding their relations 
with the United States. In addition to the 
usual presents the head chief received a richly 
laced artillery coat, and a cocked hat with a 
red feather. Then they all smoked the pipe 
of peace, and the young men shot at marks. 
At night the Indians held a dance, which was 
a new and striking spectacle for the white 
men. 

The next day the Sioux chiefs made speeches 
in reply, which were peaceful, but their main 





j0 j^^^^^^. ^^^^'^^ 




■^ "^ Calumet, or Pipe of 

8^ ;4^ m 1^ ^ 



Peace 

point was that they wanted powder and ball, 
and presents for their squaws. More presents 
were given, and they promised to make peace 
with the Ottoes and Missoiiris. 

In describing these Yankton Sioux the jour- 
nal speaks of an association of young men 
among them who are bound never to retreat 
before any danger or give way to their enemies. 



IN SOUTH DAKOTA 123 

^'In war they go forward without sheltering 
themselves behind trees. This determination 
not to be turned aside became heroic, or ridic- 
ulous, a short time since when the Yanktons 
were crossing the Missouri on the ice. A hole 
lay immediately in their course which might 
easily have been avoided by going around. 
This the leader of the band disdained to do, 
but went straight forward and was lost. The 
others would have followed his example but 
were forcibly prevented." 

Above Yankton the explorers found great 
sand ridges so regular in their formation tbat 
they are described and mapped out in the jour- 
nals as fortifications made by the hand of man. 
These were really only sand drifts, formed by 
the action of the river. 

Another experience was the first glimpse of 
an antelope, which was called a goat. The 
Americans had never seen a prairie dog, and 
when they discovered a prairie-dog village they 
'^poured five barrels of water into one of the 
holes without filling it, but we dislodged and 
caught the owner." 



124 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

A noteworthy relic of a dead animal was 
found in the form of a " backbone of a fish 
forty-five feet long, in a perfect state of petri- 
faction." This was not a fish, but the remains 
of one of the extinct giant reptiles of the Cre- 
taceous period. 

The travelers saw buffalo, elk, "goats," — 
or rather antelopes, — black-tailed deer, prairie 
wolves, coyotes, porcupines, rabbits, and bark- 
ing squirrels, as they advanced. Captain Lewis 
tried to approach and shoot some antelopes, 

but in spite of 
/j|p~^pL>u, .^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^„^ .r:^-^ his care they 

\(:i \ ^,„,,.^, Hv,.M..r "fled with a 

V , .. . .7 OlONE XlAICIlLr 

speed equal to 
that of the most distinguished race horse." 

Although still within the present South 
Dakota the explorers by late September had 
reached the country of the Teton Sioux. While 
they were in Presho County a horse was 
stolen by the Sioux, and this annoyance was 
followed by a council meeting, which was very 
different from those held before. After the 
usual talk and present giving, the ungrateful 



m SOUTH DAKOTA 125 

Sioux chief exclaimed that he had not received 
presents enough, and would stop the explorers. 
He " was proceeding to offer personal violence 
to Captain Clark, who immediately drew his 
sword and made a signal to the boat to pre- 
pare for action. The Indians who surrounded 
him drew their arrows from their quivers, 
and were bending their bows when the swivel 
[gun] was instantly pointed towards them and 
tw^elve of our most determined men jumped 
into the pirogue [small boat] and joined Cap- 
tain Clark. This movement made an impres- 
sion on them, for the grand chief ordered the 
young men away." 

The courage and tact of the Americans 
resulted in a reconciliation. The next day 
Lewis and Clark were carried by the Sioux 
in a buffalo robe to the council house, where 
they smoked the pipe of peace ; and a repast 
was served which consisted of dog and "pem- 
itigon [pemmican], — a dish made of buffalo 
meat dried or jerked and then pounded and 
mixed raw with grease, — and a kind of ground 
potato dressed like the preparation of Indian 



126 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

corn called hominy, to which it is little inferior. 
Of all these luxuries which were placed before 
us in platters, with horn spoons, we took the 
peinitigon and the potato, which we found 
good ; but we could as yet partake but spar- 
ingly of the dog." 

Here they saw a scalp dance, and were fairly 
deafened by the noise of the drums. They 
noted every detail of Sioux life about them; 
saw the buffalo-skin lodges, the punishment 
of wrongdoers by officers appointed by the 
chief, noted the Indians themselves, with their 
heads shaven except for the scalp lock, their 
faces painted with grease and coal, and their 
robes of buffalo skin adorned with porcupine 
quills. 

In spite of the Sioux professions of friend- 
ship they became troublesome again. They 
held the boat until the soldiers made ready 
to fire ; then followed with others along the 
bank, alternately threatening and begging, un- 
til finally this rascally tribe w^as left behind 
and the expedition passed into the country of 
the Arikaras. 




Natitre's "Fortifications 
(From the plan drawn by Lewis and Clark) 



m SOUTH DAKOTA 127 

Here there were not only "goats" and 
"prairie cocks" but "white bear." This Avas 
the famous grizzly bear. The explorers also 
saw " a species of animal which resembled a 
small elk, with large, circular horns." This 
was the Rocky Mountain sheep, or bighorn. 
French fur traders were found as far in the 
wilderness as this, and they aided the travelers 
in calling a council, which differed from the 
others in one respect, — the Arikaras very 
sensibly refused whisky, saying that it would 
make them fools. 

It was now October, and the weather w^as 
growing cold. The friendly Arikaras were left 
behind them, and on October 21 they reached 
a creek then called " Chisshetaw," and now 
Heart River, which joins the Missouri oppo- 
site the city of Bismarck, North Dakota, where 
the Northern Pacific Railroad now crosses 
the Missouri. The future site of Bismarck 
was then occupied by villages of the Mandan 
Indians. Since the cold weather would soon 
stop their progress it had been decided that 
they would winter among the Mandans. 



CHAPTER XIII 



AT THE MANDAN VILLAGES 



The winter camp. Hunting the buffalo. The journey onward. 
Finding the Yellowstone Eiver. Adventures with grizzly 
bears. Hunting in Montana. 

On the north bank of the Missouri, in the 
present McLean County, North Dakota, about 
eight miles below the mouth of Big Knife 




A Man DAN Hlt 



River, where the town of Stanton is now sit- 
uated, the explorers built two rows of log huts, 
protected by a stockade, for their winter camp. 
The roofs were rudely thatched with grass and 



128 



AT THE MANDAN VILLAGES 129 

clay, and in spite of the bitter weather they 
'^passed the winter comfortably." 

Here they secured an Indian interpreter 
named Chaboneau. His wife, Sacajawea (Bird 
^yoman), had been captured from the Snake 
Indians and sold to her husband. The jour- 
nal speaks of her as " a good creature, of a 
mild and gentle disposition, greatly attached 
to the whites." She and her husband accom- 
panied the travelers throughout the remainder 
of their journey, and her patience, courage, 
and helpfulness were unfailing. 

The Sioux and other Indians were con- 
stantly engaged in warfare, and the Mandans 
suffered so much that Captain Clark once 
mustered twenty-four men and offered to lead 
the Mandans against the Sioux. The deep 
snow prevented, but the offer was gratefully 
received and remembered. The friendliest 
relations prevailed between these Indians and 
the explorers. 

In December, Clark and others joined the 
Mandans in a great buffalo hunt. " The hunt- 
ers, mounted on horseback and armed with 



130 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

bows and arrows, encircle the herd and grad- 
ually drive them into a plain. . . . They then 
ride in and singUng out a buffalo, a female 
being preferred, go as close as possible and 
wound her with arrows till they think they 
have given the mortal stroke, when they 
pursue another. If, which rarely happens, 
the wounded buffalo attacks the hunter, he 
evades his blow by the agility of his horse, 
which is trained for the combat with great 
dexterity." 

In spite of weather so cold that the mercury 
often went thirty-two degrees below zero, 
the Indians kept up outdoor sports. Even the 
white men enjoyed a merry Christmas. Later, 
when their meat supply grew low, a hunting 
expedition was sent out, which killed forty 
deer, sixteen elk, and three buffalo. Although 
the game was lean and the wolves stole much 
of it, they gathered, in all, some three thou- 
sand pounds of meat. 

Visits from white fur traders and the in- 
roads of the Sioux were among the incidents 
of a winter which must, after all, have passed 




l-l 

W 
o 
< 

P 

o 



H 
O 

w 






AT THE MANDAN VILLAGES 



131 



slowly. In late February, however, it was pos- 
sible to cut the boats free from the ice and to 
begin preparing them for the onward journey. 
On April 7, 1805, the soldiers who had 
been sent as escort, with the boatmen and one 







^^i 


"^*«'Miir _^ 


^£^:' ir^ 


■■mI 




Y".'"' 




K T^H 


yv 




^.*.. 
'' » 

rf 


^ H 


*s^^=5p:ii^iS:9 


iMMHHB^ ''***«fc, - 



Interior of Deserted Mandan Hut 

interpreter, started back. They carried reports 
for President Jefferson, with stuffed animals, 
and skeletons, horns, skins, and articles of 
Indian dress. All these reached the President 
safely in course of time, and the specimens 
were exhibited at his home in Monticello. 



132 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

On the same day, April 7, the expedition, 
now consisting of thirty-two persons, embarked 
in two large boats, or pirogues, and six 
canoes, and started on their way into a region 
practically unknown to white men. The mes- 
sages which the explorers sent back at this 
point were the last w^ord received from them 
until they returned in September, 1806. But 
Captain Lewis wrote, "Entertaining as I do 
the most confident hope of succeeding in a 
voyage which had formed a darling project of 
mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem 
this moment of onr departure as among the 
most happy of my life." 

As they advanced they saw^ quantities of 
" brant " (snow geese), and they found an ani- 
mal strange to them, the gopher. The squaw 
Sacajawea dug into some of the gopher holes 
and obtained wild artichokes collected by the 
gophers. The statement of Lewis and Clark 
that the wild geese which they saw built their 
nests in the tops of tall cottonwood trees was 
doubted at the time, but was nevertheless true. 
The travelers were now in the country of the 



AT THE MANDAN VILLAGES 133 

sagebrush and alkali dust, — both unknown to 
them, and the latter very painful to their 
eyes. 

They had heard of a large river as rising 
in the mountains and emptying into the Mis- 
souri, and on April 25 Captain Lewis and 
four men left the party and found the river, 
which was already known to French trappers, 
who called it La Roche Jamie. Captain Lewis 
named it the Yellowstone. It has kept the 
name, which is familiar also as the name of 
the National Park, in which the river rises. 
The Avonders of the Yellowstone Park were 
discovered later by John Colter, then with 
the expedition. 

They saw numbers of wild animals ; and 
one day Captain Lewis, who was on shore 
with one hunter, encountered two of the for- 
midable grizzly bears of which the Indians had 
given dreadful accounts. Both men " fired, and 
each wounded a bear ; one of them made his 
escape ; the other turned upon Captain Lewis 
and pursued him seventy or eighty yards, but 
being badly wounded could not run so fast as 



134 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

to prevent him from reloading his piece, which 
he again aimed at the bear, and a third shot 
from the hunter brought him to the ground." 

A little later it was Captain Clark's turn. 
The huge bear wdiich he met is called '' brown," 
but the grizzly is called both ''white" and 
" brown " in the journal. As the hunters fired, 
" the bear fled with a most tremendous roar, 
and such was his extraordinary tenacity of life 
that, although he had five balls passed through 
his lungs, and five other wounds, he swam 
more than half across the river to a sand bar 
and survived twenty minutes. He weighed 
between five and six hundred pounds at least, 
and measured eight feet seven inches and a 
half from the nose to the extremity of the 
hind feet." 

At another time one of the men shot a 
grizzly through the lungs ; but in spite of this 
wound the bear '' pursued him furiously for 
over half a mile, then returned more than 
twice tliat distance and with his talons pre- 
pared himself a bed in the earth," where he 
was found and killed. 



AT THE M AND AN VILLAGES 135 

Another wounded grizzly pursued two hun- 
ters so closely that '' they threw aside their 
guns and pouches, and jumped down a per- 
pendicular bank of twenty feet into the river ; 
the bear sprang after them and was within 
a few feet of the hindmost when one of the 
hunters on shore shot him in the head and 
finally killed him. They found that eight 
balls had passed through him in different 
directions." 

When these exciting adventures happened 
they were journeying through Montana. They 
passed Porcupine River, named from the prev- 
alence of those animals. This is now Poplar 
River, and there is an Indian agency at its 
mouth. They discovered Milk River, which 
keeps the name that they gave it on account 
of the whiteness of its water. They found a 
river bed without water, which they called 
"Big Dry," a name which is also preserved. 

Again and again they speak of the quan- 
tities of buffalo and of elk. Now the few 
buffalo in the United States are guarded 
in the Yellowstone National Park and in 



136 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

zoological gardens and private preserves. 
Lewis and Clark found over a hundred skele- 
tons of buffalo under a precipice over which 
they had been driven by the Indians. 

There are still many elk in parts of the 
Kocky Mountains, but they are in danger of 
being destroyed like the buffalo. They are 
exposed not only to the ravages of hunters 
but also to the danger of starvation. In 
the winter of 1902-1903, when deep snow 
covered the grass, elk in Wyoming and else- 
where fairly stormed the haystacks of ranchers 
in their eagerness for food, and many died of 
starvation. The preservation of elk and other 
" big game " left in the West becomes yearly 
of greater importance. 



CHAPTER XIV 
ACEOSS MONTANA 

Discovery of the Musselshell. The first glimpse of the Rock- 
ies. A buffalo charges the camp. A narrow escape. 
At the Great Falls of the Missouri. A difficult portage. 
Reaching the Three Forks of the Missouri. In an un- 
known country. 

This was a journey of incidents and acci- 
dents. At one time the explorers were startled 
by the upsetting of the canoe containing their 
papers, instruments, and medicines ; but these 
were fortunately saved. Again, they had a 
narrow escape from being crushed by a fall- 
ing tree. But they kept steadily on their 
way, paddling, sailing when the wind per- 
mitted, and sometimes towing the boats with 
a line from shore. 

On May 20 they reached the mouth of a 
large river, the '^ Muscleshell " (Musselshell), 
twenty-two hundred and seventy miles above 

137 



138 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

the Missouri's mouth. Thus another important 
river was discovered, although it was impos- 
sible to explore it. The information given by 
Indians, that it rose in the mountains near the 
source of the Yellowstone, was erroneous. 

On May 26, 1805, when the party had 
reached the present Cow Creek, Montana, 
Captain Lewis, after ascending the highest 
summit of some hills, " first caught a distant 
view of the Rock mountains, the object of all 
our hopes and the reward of all our ambition." 
It was a thrilling moment for the explorers ; 
but they were not the first, for the Yerendryes 
had seen the Rocky Mountains many years 
before. 

A few days later a frightened buffalo broke 
into the camp at night. He galloped close to 
the heads of the men as they lay asleep by the 
camp fires, and nearly broke into the officers' 
lodge. He was turned by the barking of a 
dog and, wheeling, vanished in the darkness 
before the men realized what had happened. 

Early in June, when the explorers were 
near the site of the present town of Ophir, 



ACROSS MONTANA 139 

Montana, tliey came to a large stream which 
they called Maria's River. It was so large 
that they were in doubt as to whether this 
river from the southwest or the main stream 
from the north was the real Missouri. " On 
our right decision," says the journal, "much 
of the fate of the expedition depends : since 
if, after ascending to the Rocky Mountains or 
beyond them, we should find that the river 
we were following did not come near the 
Columbia and be obliged to return, we should 
not only lose the traveling season, but prob- 
ably dishearten the men." 

To determine this point Captain Lewis 
started to explore the north fork, and Cap- 
tain Clark the south. In three days Lewis 
was persuaded that his fork extended too far 
north for an approach to the Columbia, and 
he turned back. 

Here there was a narrow escape from a 
serious accident. While passing along a bluff 
his foot slipped, and he barely saved himself 
with his spontoon (pike) from falling ninety 
feet, over a precipice into the river. Suddenly 



140 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

he heard one of his men cry, " Captain, what 
shall I do?" and turning saw the man lying 
on the edge of the precipice, his right arm and 
leg over the brink. Lewis was self-possessed. 
He told the man to take out his knife with his 
right hand and dig a hole in which he could 
place his right foot. Thus by degrees the poor 
fellow w^orked his way to safety. 

Lewis and Clark of course were right in 
deciding that the northerly stream — Marias 
River — was a tributary, and that the south- 
western stream was the Missouri. But many 
of the party thought differently, including 
Crusatte, an experienced voyageur. So they 
decided to explore farther. Digging holes in 
the ground, they concealed many of their goods 
in caches (the French name for these places 
for hiding stores from Indians and wild ani- 
mals). Lewis ascended the south branch, the 
real Missouri, and on June 13 all doubts were 
set at rest by his discovery of the Great Falls 
of the Missouri, which the Indians had de- 
scribed. Of this wonderful cataract he gives 
a vivid picture. But his enjoyment of the 



ACROSS MONTANA 141 

beautiful sight and his further investigations 
were suddenly interrupted. A large grizzly 
bear charged upon him while his gun was 
unloaded, and chased him into the river. 
There the bear fortunately left him standing 
in water waist deep, with pike presented. 
\Yhatever Captain Lewis's dreams may have 
been that night liis waking must have been 
equally disturbing, for when he opened his 
eyes he saw a large rattlesnake coiled about 
the trunk of the tree under which he had 
been sleeping. 

It was necessary to make a portage to trans- 
port their boats and baggage around the suc- 
cession of cataracts and rapids. The south side 
of the river was selected for a portage path 
eighteen miles in length. The clearing of 
this long path was one of the many examples 
of the hard work done by the explorers. In 
addition, Captain Clark made careful surveys 
and maps of the falls, cascades, and rapids. 
A few years ago, when a manufacturing com- 
pany planned a dam at one of the falls, 
their engineers found Captain Clark's surveys 



142 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

entirely accurate. The total fall of the river 
is 412.5 feet, and the Great Falls alone plunges 
down 75.5 feet. 

It was not until June 27 that the portage 
path was finished, after much hard work, and 
much annoyance from the prickly pear, which 
pierced their moccasins. They had other ad- 
ventures with bears, which, with elk, were 
plentiful then. At this haunt of wild animals 
there is to-day Great Falls, — a town of over 
ten thousand people. 

After hiding or caching such articles as could 
be left behind, the weary task of carrying their 
supplies over the long portage was begun. 
Suddenly there was a cloud-burst and a flow 
of water, from which Sacajawea, the faithful 
Snake Indian woman who accompanied her 
husband the guide from the Mandan villages, 
was barely saved by Clark, who was himself in 
great danger. But the work was done, in spite 
of a hailstorm and the annoyances of bears, 
and swarms of peculiarly active mosquitoes. 

At the head of the falls a disappointment 
awaited them. An iron frame for a boat had 



ACROSS MONTANA 143 

been brought all the way from Harpers Ferry, 
Virginia. Over this frame they fastened the 
dressed skins of buffaloes and elks, covering 
the seams with beeswax mixed with powdered 
charcoal. But on launching the boat they 
found that this did not protect the seams, and 
the boat leaked so badly that they were forced 
to abandon it. It was therefore necessary to 
make canoes. Trees were scarce, and Clark 
traveled many miles before he found two 
cottonwoods which seemed suitable. But on 
cutting them down they were found to be 
23artly hollow and damaged in falling. With 
the perseverance and pluck which showed in 
everything that these men did, they wrought 
out the best canoes they could, although their 
ax handles, which were made on the spot, were 
constantly breaking as they worked. 

On July 15 they again set out upon their 
journey with eight heavily laden canoes. They 
encountered projecting cliffs, which sometimes 
made them pass and repass from one side of 
the river to the other. They noted fields of 
sunflowers, the seeds of which the Indians used 



144 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

to make bread. They found purple, yellow, 
and black currants, and many other berries, 
and on the cliffs they saw bighorns or Rocky 
Mountain sheep. Advancing through a frown- 
ing canon which they called the " Gates of 
the Rocky Mountains," they continued south- 
ward with the Big Belt Mountains on the east 
and the main range of the Rockies on the west. 

They were anxious to find some Shoshone 
or Snake Indians in order to obtain guides 
and horses ; but the first Indians that they 
came near were frightened away by the guns 
of the hunters, and set the grass on fire as a 
sign of danger for their companions. 

On July 25 Captain Clark, who was ahead, 
reached the Three Forks of the Missouri. The 
one flowing northeast, which is the main Mis- 
souri, was named the Jefferson. The name of 
Madison, the Secretary of State, was given to 
the middle branch, and the third was named 
for Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury. 
These names have been preserved. At this 
point the explorers were to the eastward of 
the present cities of Helena and Butte. Not 



ACROSS MONTANA 145 

far away, over the divide between southern 
Montana and Idaho, were the sources of some 
streams flowing to the Pacific. But this they 
had yet to learn. They were in a country 
untrodden by wliite men, a country of which 
they could obtain only vague ideas from the 
Indians, and yet much depended upon getting 
into communication with them. The explorers 
wished to find a pass through the mountains, 
and although Sacajawea was now in her own 
land, her knowledge of what lay beyond was 
very slight, and the real guaranty of success 
lay in the stout hearts, cheerful courage, and 
dauntless perseverance of the explorers them- 
selves. 



CHAPTER XV 
THROUGH THE ROCKIES TO THE PACIFIC 

Ascending the Jefferson. Reaching the Great Divide. Some 
friendly Indians. Sacajawea meets old acquaintances. 
Hardships and disappointments. Struggling across the 
mountains. Among the Nez Percys. On toward the sea. 
Passing the cataracts of the Columbia. The first glimpse 
of the sea. 

It was on the 30th of July that they began 
the laborious ascent of the Jefferson, or true 
Missouri. Captain Lewis went ahead to find 
some Indians and gain information as to the 
way across the mountains. The others fol- 
lowed, struggling with rapids and shoals, often 
wading through the water over slippery stones 
and dragging the boats, and often puzzled as 
to the right course by the bewildering forks 
of the stream. On August 11 Lewis saw a 
Shoshone on horseback, whom he tried vainly 
to attract by holding up a looking-glass and 

14G 



THKOUGH THE EOCKIES 147 

beads and making friendly signs. Lewis was 
now traveling near the base of the Bitter 
Root Mountains, hoping to find an Indian 
trail leading to a pass. As he kept on, the 
Jefferson grew smaller and smaller, until it 
dwindled to a brook, and one of the men, 
with a foot on each side, "thanked God that 
he had lived to bestride the Missouri." 

They had then found and were following 
an Indian trail, and at last they came to a 
gap in the mountains where they drank from 
the actual source of the great Missouri River, 
which they had ascended from its mouth. 

The Indian trail brought them to the top 
of a ridge commanding snow-topped mountains 
to the westward. '' The ridge on which they 
stood formed the dividing line between the 
waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 
The descent was much steeper than on the 
eastern side, and at the distance of three- 
quarters of a mile they reached a bold creek 
of cold, clear water running west, and stopped 
to taste for the first time the waters of the 
Columbia." 



148 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



These were the first white men to cross the 
" Continental Divide " in our Northwest. In 
1792-1793 Alexander Mackenzie had crossed 
British America to the Pacific. 

Lewis and his men kept on to the westward 
and finally made friends with some Indians. 




Map of Lewis and Clark Pass 

They smoked the pipe of peace and partook 
of a salmon, — another proof that they were 
on the Pacific side of the mountains. The 
chief promised horses but afterward became 
suspicious of some treachery, and, between 
the chief's changes of mind and scanty food, 
Lewis's stay was made most uncomfortable. 
But at last he and the Indians, with horses, 



THROUGH THE ROCKIES 149 

started back to meet Captain Clark, who all 
this time had been laboriously ascending the 
Jefferson with the boats. 

On August 17, after retracing his course 
across the divide, Captain Lewis and his party 
found Captain Clark. As they approached 
each other the faithful Sacajawea, who was 
with Clark, began to dance with joy, pointing 
to the Indians and sucking her fingers to show 
that they were of her tribe. Presently an 
Indian woman came to her, and they embraced 
each other with the most tender affection. 
" They had been companions in childhood ; 
in the war with the Minnetarees they had 
both been taken prisoners in the same battle ; 
they had shared and softened the rigors of 
their captivity till one of them had escaped 
from their enemies with scarce a hope of ever 
seeing her friend rescued from their hands." 

It was arranged that Clark, with eleven 
men and with tools, should cross the divide to 
the village of the Shoshonees. He was then to 
lead his men down the Columbia and, when he 
found navigable water, to begin to build canoes. 



150 LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 

Lewis was to remain and bring the baggage 
to the Shoshone village. At the council held 
here the Indians promised to bring more 
horses, and showed great astonishment at the 
arms and dress of the men, the *^ strange 
looks" of the negro, and the air gun. 

On August 20 Clark reached the Shoshone 
village, which since Lewis's visit had been 
moved two miles up the little river on which 
it was situated. Here he heard most dis- 
couraging accounts of the wild country before 
him and the difficulty of reaching navigable 
water by which they could descend to the sea. 
These stories proved too true. Clark passed 
the junction of the Salmon and Lemhi rivers, 
where Salmon City, Idaho, is now situated, 
and he gave the name of Lewis Kiver to the 
stream below the junction. 

The traveling over rocky mountain paths 
was most trying, and instead of the abundance 
of game which they had seen in Montana and 
Dakota there was an absence of deer and other 
animals. They were obliged to depend largely 
on such salmon as they could catch, or buy 



THROUGH THE EOCKIES 151 

from the Indians. Since the Indians them- 
selves were scant of food, and the wliite men 
had no proper fishing tackle, it is not strange 
that Clark's followers hegan to fear starva- 
tion. They explored the Salmon River for 
fifty-two miles, but saw that progress that way 
was impossible, and, unsuccessful for once, 
they returned to join Lewis. 

Meantime Lewis had had his own troubles. 
After promising horses and aid, the Indians 
threatened to leave him for a buffalo hunt on 
the eastern side of the mountains, and it was 
only by much tact and patience that he kept 
them with him. 

On August 30 Clark returned from his un- 
successful search for a water way. A part 
of the baggage was hidden and the rest was 
packed on horses. Then the explorers went 
on slowly through the Bitter Root Mountains. 
The Indian guide lost his way completely. 
" The thickets through which we were obliged 
to cut our way required great labor ; the road 
itself was over the steep and rocky sides of 
the hills, where the horses could not move 



152 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

without danger of slipping down, while their 
feet were bruised by the rocks and stumps." 
They saw no game, and were obliged to resort 
to horseflesh for food. The nights were cold, 
and as they reached greater heights the trail 
was sometimes covered with snow. A few 
cans of soup and twenty pounds of bear s oil 
were all the food that they had left. No 
wonder that the men grew weak and ill. 

But on September 20, half-starved and sick, 
after nearly three weeks of hardships in the 
Bitter Root Mountains, they emerged upon a 
plain where they found Indians and food. 
At last the barrier of the mountains had been 
broken through. 

These Indians were the Nez Perces. Amonij: 
the articles of food which they offered were 
various roots, including the quamash, which 
was ground and made into a cake called 
jMsheco. This root is still eaten by the Nez 
Perces, and from quamash comes the name 
of Camas Prairie. It seemed a relief to have 
a comparative abundance of food. But this 
consisted principally of fish and roots, and 



THROUGH THE ROCKIES 153 

this strange diet, of which they naturally ate 
heartily after their privations, caused serious 
illness throughout the party. " Captain Lewis 
could hardly sit on his horse, while others were 
obliged to be put on horseback, and some, from 
extreme weakness and pain, were forced to he 
down alongside of the road for some time." 

While resting at the Nez Perce village near 
the present Pierce City, Idaho, they learned 
all that they could of the country beyond. 
The Indian chief Twisted-hair drew a rude 
map of the rivers, showing the forks of the 
Kooskooskee, now the Clearwater, the junction 
with the Snake River, and the entrance of 
another large river, which was the Columbia. 

Late in September, after obtaining provi- 
sions from the Indians, they moved on to a 
camp on the Kooskooskee River. In spite of 
continued illness they built five canoes. They 
concealed some of their goods, left their horses 
with the Indians, and, undaunted by their suf- 
ferings, started down the river in their canoes 
on October 8. One canoe was sunk by strik- 
ing a rock, and a halt was called to dry the 



154 LOUISIA^^A PURCHASE 

luggage and make repairs. Fish and even 
dogs were bought from the Indians for food. 

Always alert for information, the explor- 
ers noted all the i^eculiarities of their hosts. 
There were the baths, or sweat houses, which 
were hollow squares in the river Imnks, where 
the bather steamed himself by pouring water 
on heated stones. Some of the Indians cooked 
salmon by putting hot stones into a bucket of 
water until it would boil the fish. Many of 
them were frightened by tlie coming of the 
wdiite men with their guns. At one place 
Captain Clark, unperceived by them, shot a 
white crane, and seeing it fall they believed 
it to be the white men descending from the 
clouds. When Clark used his burning glass 
to light his pipe they were more than ever sure 
that their visitors were not mortal. But tliey 
were finally reassured by presents and the 
kindness and tact which the travelers showed 
in all their dealings with the savages. There 
were '' almost inconceivable multitudes of 
salmon" in the rivers. Many at that season 
were floating down stream, and the Indians 



THKOUGH THE KOCKIES 155 

were collecting, splitting, and drying them 
on scaffolds. 

One of the first camps was at the junction 
of the Kooskooskee and Snake, where the citv 
of Lewiston, Idaho, now stands, — named for 
Captain Lewis. Then, entering the present 
state of Washington, they descended the Snake, 
where the wind and the rapids caused various 
accidents. On October 16 they reached the 
mighty Columbia, which had been called by the 
Indians the '^ Oregon," or " Eiver of the West." 
This was to be their pathway to the sea. 

They were now among the Sokulk Indians, 
from whom they purchased more dogs, since 
the salmon were poor and they had accus- 
tomed themselves to dog flesh. They noted 
the deerskin robes of the red men, and their 
method of gigging (spearing) salmon and dry- 
ing them ; tlie prevalence of sore eyes among 
the Indians, ascribed to the glare from the 
water; and their bad teeth, which they traced 
to a diet of gritty roots. 

On October 23, two days after their first 
glimpse of Mt. Hood, they reached the first 



156 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

falls of the Columbia, which they passed suc- 
cessfully by jDortages and by letting the canoes 
down the rapids with lines. At the next fall 
they managed, after partially unloading the 
canoes, to run them down through a narrow 
passage, past a liigh, black rock, much to the 
astonishment of the Indians. 

Here they were surprised to find that the 
savages (Echeloots, related to the Upper Chi- 
nooks) were living in wooden houses, Avhich 
consisted in large part of an underground 
room, lined with wood and covered above 
ground with a roof composed of ridgepole, 
rafters, and a white cedar covering. Here, as 
before, the explorers acted the part of peace- 
makers, and urged the Indians to cease their 
warfare with neighboring tribes. Lewis and 
Clark had before this seen flat-headed women 
and children in certain tribes, but here the 
men also had been subjected to this cruel 
practice. The result was often accomplished 
by binding a board tightly on an infant's 
forehead, and thus flattening it backward and 
upward. 



THROUGH THE ROCKIES 157 

On October 28 they were visited by an 
Indian " who wore his hair in a que [cue] and 
had on a round hat and a sailor's jacket which 
he said he had obtained from the people below 
the great rapids, who bought them from the 
whites." This was a cheering indication of 
their approach to the mouth of the Columbia, 
where the fur trade attracted American and 
English ships. Later they found an English 
musket and cutlass and some brass teakettles 
in an Indian hut, and one of the chiefs had 
cloths and a sword procured from some Eng- 
lish vessel. 

Thus they went on through the present 
Skamania County, Washington, hunting now 
and then with some slight success, observing 
the country, buying roots and dogs, and mak- 
ing notes of the habits of the natives and of 
their burial places, until they came to the 
"great shoot" or last rapids of the Columbia, 
which they passed without serious accident. 

From Indians below the rapids they heard 
the encouraging news that three ships had 
lately been seen at the mouth of the river. 



158 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

As they journeyed toward the sea, the entrance 
of the Multnomah, now the Willamette River, 
was concealed from them by the islands at 
its mouth. A few miles farther up, tlie 
prosperous city of Portland, Oregon, now 
stands. While they were being piloted down 
the river by the Indian who had come to 
them in a sailor's jacket, they caught sight 
of Mt. St. Helens. 

Fog and rain, thievish Indians, and the 
noises of wild fowl at night were among their 
smaller troubles, but all were forgotten when, 
on November 7, the fog suddenly cleared away 
and " we enjoyed the delightful prospect of 
the ocean, — that ocean, the object of all our 
labors, the reward of all our anxieties. This 
cheering view exhilarated the spirits of all the 
party, who were still more delighted on hearing 
the distant roar of the breakers." 

Remembering what they had undergone, 
one can understand their joy at success in 
their perilous task. They had crossed the 
continent. 



CHAPTER XVI 
ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 

The winter camp. Peculiarities of the Clatsop Indians. A 
scarcity of supplies. Turning homeward. Surmounting 
the cascades. Journeying by land. Troublesome Indians. 
Living on dog flesh. A search for their horses. Indian 
cooking. Suffering of the explorers. 

The sea gave tliem an inliospi table welcome. 
As they neared a campiDg place which they 
selected on Gray's Bay, in Wahkiakum County, 
Washington, the waves were so high that some 
of the men became seasick. Next day they 
were l)eaten back to camp by the rough 
water, which their canoes, mere dugouts, coidd 
not withstand. They were flooded by inces- 
sant rain and harassed by heavy winds, thiev- 
ish Indians, and the fleas which were the 
Indians' constant companions. 

At their next camp, on Baker s I^ay, they 
suffered even more from the merciless rain. 

159 



160 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

They found game, and explored to some extent 
the mouth of the Columbia. They hoped to 
encounter a trading ship from which they could 
replenish their stores, but none appeared. It 
was necessary to find a place for a winter camp 
and Lewis finally discovered one, on the south 
side of the Columbia, not far from their present 
camp. Before leaving the latter this inscrip- 
tion was carved on the trunk of a lofty pine: 

" Wm. Clark December 3d 1805 

By Land from the U. States 

in 1804 & 5." 

Some three miles up the Netul River, which 
empties into a bay named Meriwether's (for 
Captain Meriwether Lewis), they made their 
camp on a bluff in a grove of lofty pines. 
There they built seven log cabins, roofed with 
rude shingles, or more properly slabs, called 
'^shakes," which were split from pine logs. 
Their meat house was replenished by hunt- 
ing elk and deer. In the course of the winter 
they killed one hundred and thirty-one of the 
former and twenty of the latter. 







Mouth of tiik Columbia Riveu 
(From the plan drawn by Lewis and Clark) 



ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 161 

They saw much of the Clatsop Indians, who 
lived in houses of split pine boards half above 
and half below the ground. The explorers 
noted tliat these Indians were cleanly and fre- 
quently washed their faces and hands, some- 
thing which they had rarely seen among other 
tribes. In their most common game ^'one of 
the party had a piece of bone about the size 
of a large bean, and having agreed with any 
individual as to tlie value of the stake, he 
would pass the bone from one hand to the 
other with great dexterity, singing at the same 
time to divert the attention of his adversary; 
then holding it in his closed hands, his antag- 
onist was challenged to guess in which of 
them the bone was." This seems to have been 
a variety of the game, '^ Button, Button, who 
has the Button?" 

These Clatsops are described as wearing 
hats '' made of cedar-bark and bear-grass, 
interwoven together in the form of a Euro- 
pean liat, with a small brim of about two 
inches, and a high crown widening upward. 
They are light, ornamented with various 



162 LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 

colors, and being nearly waterproof, are much 
more durable than either chip or straw hats. 
. . . But the most curious workmanship is 
that of the basket. It is formed of cedap- 
bark and bear-grass, so closely interwoven 
that it is water-tight, without the aid of either 
gum or resin." 

These Indians were much more attractive 
than the dwarfish and ugly Chinooks, whom 
they also observed, but with great caution on 
account of their thievish habits. 

The winter was not eventful. They hunted, 
studied the Indians, and made salt by evap- 
orating sea water. There was little snow, 
but the rain was persistent. 

In March they prepared for their long jour- 
ney homeward. On examining their stores 
they found a sufficient supply of powder. This 
was in leaden canisters, which, when they had 
been emptied, were melted to make bullets. 
Their goods, however, were nearly exhausted. 
"All the small merchandise we possess might 
be tied up in a couple of handkerchiefs. The 
rest of our stock in trade consists of six blue 



ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 163 

robes, one scarlet robe, five robes which we 
made of our United States flag, a few old 
clothes trimmed with ribbons, and one artil- 
lerist's coat and hat, which probably Captain 
Clark will never wear again. We have to 
depend entirely upon this meagre outfit for 
the purchase of such horses and provisions as 
it will be in our power to obtain — a scant 
dependence indeed, for such a journey as is 
before us." 

Before they started they made several 
copies of a list of the party, a map of their 
route, and a memorandum regarding their 
travels. These they left with the Clatsops, 
who were to give them to any white man. 
One list was given the next summer to Captain 
Hill of the brig Lydia, who came to the coast 
to trade. He took it to China and then sent it 
to the United States, where it arrived safely. 

At this point in the journal there is a long 
and careful account of all the plants, animals, 
birds, and fish which they had seen, showing 
how thoroughly they had studied the natural 
history of the country during the winter. 



164 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

On March 23, 1806, the canoes were loaded 
and they began the journey eastward. The 
hunters of the party searched the shores dili- 
gently for game with some success. They 
obtained "wappatoo" (arrowhead roots) from 
the various Indians whom they met, some of 
whom, the Skilloots, were old acquaintances, 
and later, dogs w^ere again necessary to help 
out their fare. On the return, Captain Clark 
discovered the Multnomah, now the Willamette 
River, which as we have seen they failed to 
notice on the descent. They describe Mt. Hood 
and Mt. Regnier (Rainier), St. Helens, and 
Mt. Jefferson, and they note the beautiful cas- 
cades along the rocky walls of the Columbia, 
among them the superb Muhnomah Falls. 

On April 9 they reached Beacon Rock on 
the north side of the river, which marks the 
liead of tide water and the foot of the cas- 
cades of the Columbia. They had only one 
towrope, and it was therefore a long and 
tiresome task to drag the canoes one by one 
along the shore to the portage. Here they 
were obliged to unload the canoes and carry 





.f^l^H 




i 







Coi)yriglit, r.Kil, by Detroit riuitipj^raplue 
Company 

MiLTNOMAii Falls 



ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 165 

their effects around. The Indians, Wahclel- 
lahs, crowded about them and threatened vio- 
lence. Some of them threw stones. Two 
attempted to take a dog from Shields, one of 
the men. " He had no weapon but a long 
knife, with which he immediately attacked 
both, hoping to put them to death before they 
had time to draw their arrows ; but as soon as 
they saw his design they fled into the woods." 

After much labor the company passed the 
cascades, and presently surmounted the " Long 
Narrows." These are now known as the 
Dalles of the Columbia, from a French word 
meaning flat stones. At the head is now 
Celilo City, and at the foot Dalles City, both 
in Oregon. 

By April 16 the party reached the plains 
stretching away to the foot of the Rockies, 
and they found that the air was drier and 
more pure, and that they had emerged from 
the region of constant rains. 

After various efforts a few horses were pro- 
cured and some of the canoes were broken 
up, and from the 24th of April they traveled 



166 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

wholly by land. Their stock of goods was so 
low that it was hard to trade for horses, and 
on the 28th we find Captain Clark obliged to 
give his sword for a white horse in addition 
to some powder and ball. 

The Skilloot Indians and others proved 
thievish and disobliging. One of them was 
kicked out of camp for stealing, but in spite 
of these troubles bloodshed was avoided by tact 
and patience. An agreeable contrast was af- 
forded by the " Walla wollahs " (Walla Wallas), 
three of whom travelled a whole day to return 
a steel trap which the explorers had left be- 
hind. It is pleasant also to know that Lewis 
and Clark were enabled by their knowledge 
of medicine and surgery to help these Indians. 
They set a broken arm and put it into splints, 
and gave medicines to the sick. They enter- 
tained other Indians with their violins, which 
had been carefully preserved throughout their 
vicissitudes. 

They were now crossing the plains where 
fuel and game were scarce. They passed 
along the Walla Walla River in Washington 



ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 167 

on their way toward the Kooskooskee River 
and their friends the Chopunnish Indians. 
Early in May they met an old acquaintance, 
Weahkoonut, who had guided them down the 
Snake in the previous antumn. The explorers 
had been living on scanty rations and were 
half famished, and they found that the Indians 
themselves were little better off. Dog flesh was 
their chief reliance until the hunters succeeded 
in killing; some deer. 

It will be remembered that they had left 
their horses with these Indians in the autumn 
and had hidden their saddles and some of their 
goods. But there had been quarrels among 
the Indians, the hiding place had been ex- 
posed, some of the saddles were gone, and it 
was only after much trouble that the horses 
were recovered. 

On May 10 there was a heavy snowstorm, 
and as the mountains were covered the ex- 
plorers made a camp on the river to await 
the melting of the snow. They were now 
on the Kooskooskee, in the Nez Perce County, 
Idaho, to the eastward of the city of Lewiston. 



168 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Here they held a grand council with the In- 
dians, explaining the sovereignty and benefi- 
cent intentions of the United States. It would 
be hard to say exactly what ideas reached the 
Indians. The explorers spoke in English to 
one of their men. He translated the message 
into French for Chaboneau. He interpreted 
it to his wife in the Minnetaree language. 
She put it into Shoshone, and a young Sho- 
shone prisoner among the Indians explained 
it to the Chopunnish in their own dialect. 
Whatever they might have gathered from the 
talk, the Indians had no difficulty in under- 
standing the presents which were made them. 
The hunters encountered grizzly bears again, 
and some meat was given to the Indians, which 
they cooked in an odd way. '^ They immedi- 
ately prepared a large fire of dried wood, on 
which was thrown a number of smooth stones 
from the river. As soon as the fire burned 
down and the stones were heated, they were 
laid next to each other in a level position and 
covered with a quantity of pine branches, on 
which were placed flitches of the meat, and 



ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 169 

then boughs and flesh alternately for several 
courses, leaving a thick layer of jDine on the 
top. On this heap they then poured a small 
quantity of water and covered the whole with 
earth to the depth of four inches. After 
remaining in this state for about three hours, 
the meat w^as taken off, and was really more 
tender than that which we had boiled or 
roasted, though the strong flavor of the pine 
rendered it disagreeable to our palates." 

Their stay in this country was made uncom- 
fortable by a recurrence of the rains. They 
often slept in pools of rain water. About the 
middle of May they found that the stores of 
each man were reduced to one awl, a knitting 
needle, half an ounce of vermillion, two needles, 
a few skeins of thread, and a yard of ribbon. 
This represented their means of trading with 
the Indians. To increase their store they cut 
from their ras^sred uniforms the brass buttons 
which attracted the Indians, and bought fish, 
bread, and roots. They also exchanged some 
of their eyewater and ointment, and tin boxes 
in which they had kept phosphorus. 



170 louisia:n^a puechase 

The medical practice of the explorers con- 
tinued. They treated the Chopunnish (Nez 
Perces) for sore eyes and for rheumatism. 
There was much sickness among their own 
party. However much they suffered them- 
selves, they gave the tenderest care to one 
pathetic little figure, — a strange comrade for 
such a journey, — the baby of Sacajawea. 

It was not a cheerful time that they passed 
at this camp. They gathered all the food 
possible, nursed their sick, cared for their 
horses, and waited as patiently as possible for 
the deep snow to melt, so that they might 
cross the mountains. 

Once, on June 10, they started, but snow 
fifteen feet deep forced them to return, after 
several accidents. It was essential that they 
should descend the Missouri before winter 
closed navigation. Salt had given out, they 
were unable to catch fish, and there was no 
game until they returned to Quamash (Camas) 
Flats, where some deer and bears were killed. 
The explorers recorded these facts in their 
journal without complaints or despondency. 



CHAPTER XVII 
ACKOSS THE MOUNTAmS 

A rough mountain road. Dividing the party. An adventure 
with a grizzly. Fighting with Indians. An accident to 
Captain Lewis. His indomitable courage. Passing the 
Great Falls of the Missouri. Lewis overtakes Captain 
Clark. 

On June 24, after securing some Indian 
guides, thej set out on a second attempt to 
pass the mountains. This time, in spite of 
snow, dangerous precipices, and steep ascents, 
they succeeded in crossing the Bitter Root 
range. They traveled one hundred and fifty- 
six miles in this rough journey from Idaho 
into Montana. On June 30 they reached 
their old camp on Clark's River, Montana. 

They decided that Lewis and nine men 
should hasten on to the falls of the Missouri 
and prepare for the portage of canoes and 
baggage. Clark was to go to the head of the 

171 



172 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Jefferson River, which Sergeant Ordway and 
nine men were to descend, while Clark and 
ten men were to descend the Yellowstone. 
This was in order to gain as much knowledge 
as possible of the country. 

Lewis's journey to the falls was uneventful. 
There were plenty of elk and other game, and 
also, unfortunately, of mosquitoes. On open- 
ing their cache at the falls they found the 
bearskins and specimens of plants spoiled by 
water. Some of the horses disappeared, and 
Drewyer, the mightiest hunter of the party, 
went on a long and fruitless quest for them. 
Another man, M'Neal, "approached a thicket 
in which there was a white [grizzly] bear 
which he did not discover until he was within 
ten feet of him ; his horse started, and wheel- 
ing suddenly round, threw M'Neal almost 
immediately under the bear. He started up 
instantly, and finding the bear raising himself 
on his hind feet to attack him, struck him on 
the head with the butt of his musket. The 
blow was so violent that it broke the breech 
of the musket and knocked the bear to the 



ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 173 

ground, and before lie recovered, M'Neal, see- 
ing a willow tree close by, sprang up it and 
there stayed, while the bear closely guarded 
the foot of the tree until late in the after- 
noon. He then went off and M'Neal, being 
released, came down." 

After preparing the carriages for the boats, 
Lewis started northward to explore Marias 
River. They were in a buffalo country, and 
there were signs of Indians. This was the 
land of the troublesome Blackfoot and Min- 
netaree Indians, and the signs were disturb- 
ing. Lewis followed' up the north fork of 
Marias River, known as the Cut-bank River, 
in the northwest corner of Montana. He was 
anxious to find whether its source was in 
British America or the United States. But 
cloudy weather prevented them from taking 
observations, and the chronometer stopped 
for a time and they found themselves imable 
to determine the longitude. Without exact 
observations they could not fix the boundary 
line. Finally they turned back, after naming 
the place Camp Disappointment. 



174 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

On the same day, July 26, they encoun- 
tered a band of eight Mmnetarees armed with 
two guns and bows and arrows. At first the 
meeting was peaceful, but the white men 
knew that these Indians were treacherous and 
great horse thieves. They camped together, 
but Lewis himself kept on watch until a late 
hour and then w^oke one of his men. It was 
fortunate that they were vigilant. Toward 
morning the Indians quietly rose and seized 
the rifles. ^'As soon as Fields [the sentinel, 
who had carelessly laid aside his rifle] turned 
round, he saw the Indian running off wdth the 
rifles, and instantly calling his brother they 
pursued him for fifty or sixty yards, and just 
as they overtook him, in the scuffle for the 
rifles, R. Fields stabbed him through the heart 
with his knife ; the Indian ran about fifteen 
steps and fell dead." 

Meantime there was another struggle at 
the camp. An Indian had seized Drewyer's 
rifle, but on the instant Drewyer leaped up and 
wrested it from him. Awakened by the noise 
Captain Lewis reached for his rifle only to 




^^y/!zjeA>iyyT/-e/^¥u^ <2<^e-^T.>^^t_^ 



ACEOSS THE MOUNTAINS 175 

see an Indian running off with it. Drawing 
his pistol he rushed after the Indian, who 
finally threw the gun down. They had saved 
their rifles, but their horses were now in dan- 
ger. Lewis ordered the men to pursue the 
main party, who were driving off most of the 
horses. He himself, bareheaded, ran after two 
Indians who were escaping with another horse. 
He shouted breathlessly that unless they re- 
turned it he would shoot, and shoot he did, 
wounding one of the Indians, who fired at him. 
" The shot had nearly been fatal, for Captain 
Lewis felt the wind of the ball very distinctly." 
The result of this little battle was wholly 
favorable to the explorers. They lost one 
horse, but captured four Indian horses and 
some shields, bows, quivers, and one gun 
which the Indians left in the camp. The 
Indian killed by Fields was the one to whom 
they had presented a medal the day before, 
and this they left around his neck, " that 
they might be informed who we were." The 
patience and adroitness of the explorers had 
kept them almost wholly free from serious 



176 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

trouble with the Indians. In this case they 
were forced to act in self-defense. 

Very naturally they lost no time in start- 
ing on, fearing immediate pursuit by a larger 
band, but they made the journey back to the 
falls of the Missouri in safety. 

Lewis and his reunited party, who had been 
joined by Sergeant Ordway and his men, passed 
around the falls and hastened down the river. 
At the mouth of the Yellowstone they found 
a note from Captain Clark, who was waiting 
a few miles below. But before they over- 
took him their leader. Captain Lewis, narrowly 
escaped death. Landing with the canoeman, 
Cruzatte, to hunt some elk, they took different 
routes. " Just as Captain Lewis was taking 
aim at an elk, a ball struck him in the left 
thigh, about an inch below the joint of the 
hip, and, missing the bone, went through the 
left thigh, and grazed the right to the depth 
of the ball. It instantly occurred to him 
that Cruzatte must have shot him by mistake 
for an elk, as he was dressed in brown leather, 
and Cruzatte had not a very good eyesight," 



ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 177 

He called to Crnzatte, but received no an- 
swer. Fearing an Indian ambush he pluck- 
ily made his way to the boat, shouting to 
Cruzatte to retreat. He reached the boat, 
and, wounded as he was, bravely led the men 
back to relieve Cruzatte. After a hundred 
steps his wound made it impossible for him 
to go on. Without thought of a guard for 
himself, he sent the men on, and " limping 
back to the boat, he prepared himself with his 
rifle, a pistol, and the air-gun, to sell his life 
dearly in case the men should be overcome." 

After all, it was a false alarm as regarded 
the Indians. It was Cruzatte himself who 
had shot Captain Lewis. He had seen the 
brown suit and had mistaken him for an elk. 

The suffering of Captain Lewis was none 
the less real as he lay in the bottom of the 
pirogue while they went on to overtake Cap- 
tain Clark. On August 12 they met two fur 
traders from Illinois, and on the same day 
they joined Captain Clark, near the mouth of 
Little Knife Creek, and the whole party were 
reunited. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
CAPTAIN CLARK'S ADVENTURES 

Crossing to the Yellowstone. The last glimpse of the Rockies, 
Buffalo and bears. Reaching the Missouri. Attacked by 
mosquitoes. Pryor loses the horses. Bitten by a wolf. 
The whole party reunited. 

We must go back for more than a month to 
begin the story of Clark's exploration of the 
Yellowstone River. He had parted from the 
others on July 3 at Traveler's Rest Creek in 
the Bitter Root Mountains in western Mon- 
tana. With fifteen men and Sacajawea, her 
child, and fifty horses, they traveled along 
Clark's River. On July 4, having made sixteen 
miles, " we halted at an early hour for the pur- 
pose of doing honor to the birthday of our coun- 
try's independence. The festival was not very 
splendid, for it consisted of a mush made of 
cows [cowish] roots and a saddle of venison, nor 
had we anything to tempt us to prolong it." 

178 



CAPTAIN CLAKK'S ADVENTURES 179 

In passing from the present MissouLa County, 
Montana, into Beaver County they crossed a 
hill which divides the flow of water to the 
Atlantic from that to the Pacific. They dis- 
covered some of the hot sulphur springs which 
have since become so familiar. At the forks of 
the Jefferson they opened the cache made in 
August, 1805, and found the hidden goods 
and canoes generally in excellent condition. 
In their descent of the Jefferson they saw 
"innumerable quantities of beaver and otter, 
[and] the bushes of the low grounds are a 
favorite resort for deer, while on the higher 
parts of the valley are seen scattered groups 
of antelopes, and still further, on the steep 
sides of the mountains, we observed many of 
the big horn which take refuge there from 
the wolves and bear." This was to the west- 
ward of the present Bannock City. 

When they reached the mouth of Madison 
River, Clark sent Sergeant Ordway and nine 
men on down the Missouri to overtake Lewis 
and the others. Clark himself, with ten men 
and Sacajawea, her baby, and fifty horses, set 



180 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

out from the forks of tlie Missouri to reach the 
Yellowstone River. The travelers of to-day 
who pass through Bozeman Pass from Gallatin 
City to Livingston by the railroad are following 
Captain Clark's route for much of the way. 

Sacajawea, always helpful, found edible 
roots, and assisted the travelers by her recol- 
lections of the country. On July 15 they 
passed the ridge dividing the waters of the 
Missouri and the Yellowstone. Some of the 
horses were stolen by Indians in the night. 
One of the hunters "fell on a small piece of 
timber, which ran nearly two inches into the 
muscular part of his thigh. The wound was 
very painful, and were it not for their great 
anxiety to reach the United States this season, 
the party would have remained till he was 
cured." But it was necessary to place him in 
a rude litter and to press on. They reached 
a tributary of the Yellowstone, where they 
made two dugouts which were lashed together. 
Sergeant Pryor and two others were sent on 
with the horses, and the sergeant's experience 
was most unfortunate. "As soon as they 



CAPTAIN CLAKK'S ADVENTUEES 181 

discovered a herd of buffalo the loose horses, 
having been trained by the Indians to hunt, 
immediately set off in pursuit of them, and 
surrounded the buffalo herd with almost as 
much skill as their riders could have done. 
At last he was obliged to send one horseman 
forward and drive all the buffalo from the 
route." But the whole party aided in getting 
most of the horses across the river, and Pryor, 
with an additional man, was sent on his way 
to the Mandan villages. 

Clark and his party were now descending 
the Big Horn Biver. On an island they found 
a huge Indian lodge, sixty feet in diameter at 
the base, built of poles covered with bushes. 
On the tops of the poles were eagle feathers, 
and from the center hung a stuffed buffalo 
skin. This was probably a place for councils. 

On July 27 they passed from the Big Horn 
into the Yellowstone and " took a last look at 
the Kocky Mountains, which had been con- 
stantly in view from the first of May." 

As they floated down the discolored waters 
of the Yellowstone, buffalo appeared in vast 



182 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

numbers. " Such was the multitude of these 
animals, that, although the river, including an 
island, over which they passed was a mile in 
length, the herd stretched as thick as they 
could swim, completely from one side to the 
other, and the party was obliged to stop for an 
hour. They consoled themselves for the delay 
by killing four of the herd, and then proceeded 
a distance of forty-five miles on an island, be- 
low which two other herds of buffalo, as numer- 
ous as the first, soon after crossed the river." 

On August 2 Captain Clark notes that " the 
bear which gave so much trouble on the head 
of the Missouri, are equally fierce in this 
quarter. This morning one of them, which 
was on a sandbar as the boat passed, raised 
himself on his hind feet, and after looking at 
the party, plunged in and swam towards them. 
He was received with three balls in the body; 
he then turned round and made for the shore." 

On August 3 they reached the junction of 
the Yellowstone and the Missouri, where they 
had made their camp on April 26, 1805. 
But swarms of mosquitoes gave them such a 



CAPTAIN CLAKK'S ADVENTURES 183 

reception that they moved their camp farther 
down the river to await the coming of Cap- 
tain Lewis. Of Sacajawea's poor little child 
we read, '' The face of the Indian child is 
considerably puffed up and swollen with the 
bites of these animals." The men themselves 
could procure scarcely any sleep. When Clark 
tried to hunt he could not keep the mosqui- 
toes from the barrel of his rifle long enough 
to take aim. 

Sergeant Pry or' s adventures with the horses 
were most trying. At the outset, as we saw, 
he lost some and had much difficulty in man- 
aging the others. He and his companions 
overtook Clark on August 8, but they had no 
horses at all. Tliey could only report that 
the horses had disappeared in the night. All 
that they were able to find were the tracks of 
the Indians who had stolen them. 

But Pry or' s troubles did not end here. " On 
the following night a wolf bit him through 
the hand as he lay asleep, and made an 
attempt to seize Windsor, when Shannon dis- 
covered and shot him." 



184 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

The ingenuity of these men was equal to 
the emergency. When the horses disappeared, 
they imitated the Mandans by making boats 
of buffalo skins stretched around hoops and 
ribbed with sticks, and in these frail vessels 
they floated safely down the river until they 
overtook Captain Clark. 

On August 11 Clark encountered two white 
fur traders from the country of the Illinois, 
and from these adventurers they gathered 
some news of the lower country. The fur 
traders and trappers were always among the 
first pioneers and explorers of the far West. 

On August 12 they were overtaken by the 
boats commanded by Captain Lewis, who was 
lying wounded in the pirogue. 

The party was now reunited, and they 
started again on their way to the villages of 
the Minnetarees and the Mandans. 



CHAPTER XIX 
ON THE WAY HOME 

At the Mandan villages again. Big White accompanies the 
explorers. Colter remains in the wilderness. His subse- 
quent discovery of the Yellowstone Park. Parting with 
the faithful squaw. Descending the river. The arrival at 
St. Louis. The news in Washington. The later life of 
Lewis and Clark. 

Since it was near the Mandan villages that 
the explorers had passed their first winter, they 
felt comparatively at home. But they learned 
that their constant admonitions to keep the 
peace had not been followed by the neigh- 
bors of the Mandans, the Minnetarees, who 
also were asked to a grand council. There 
had been fights with Arikaras and Sioux, and 
the explorers were obliged to try the part of 
peacemakers again. 

One of the main objects of the council was 
to persuade some chiefs to accompany the 
explorers to Washington to see the Great 

185 



186 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Father, as they called the President. This 
was very desirable, because the sight of the 
white people and their cities would impress the 
Indians and tend to make them more docile. 
But the Minnetaree chief excused himself on 
the plea that he was afraid of being killed by 
the Sioux, which was simply a pretext to avoid 
a journey that he did not care to make. The 
Indians were probably suspicious and preferred 
their own life to that of the white men. But 
at last Shahakas (Big White), a Mandan chief, 
agreed to go to Washington.^ 

^ Lewis and Clark promised Big White a safe return, 
and he did return finally, after some curious adventures 
described in Chittenden's " History of the American Fur 
Trade." In 1807, after his visit to Washington, an expedi- 
tion M^as organized at St. Louis to escort Big White, his 
interpreter, their wives and two children, back to the Man- 
dan villages. It was commanded by Pry or, who had been 
promoted to the rank of ensign for his services in the Lewis 
and Clark expedition. Evidently his loss of the horses was 
not charged against him. But when the party reached the 
Arikaras, these Indians demanded goods, and also the sur- 
render of Big White. Pryor refused to give him up. A 
battle followed and several were killed and wounded on 
each side. The party were finally obliged to return, and 
Big White was carried back to St. Louis. In 1809 Captain 




«*r" 



A Mandan Chief 



ON THE WAY HOME 187 

The party were now well on their way 
home, but the fascination of the wilderness 
was so strong that one of the men, John 
Colter, a most skillful hunter, applied for per- 
mission to leave the expedition and join some 
trappers who were going up the river. He 
had been away many years from the frontiers, 
but just as he was approaching civilization he 
turned his back upon it, preferring the wild 
life of the plains and mountains.^ His choice 

Lewis, then governor of upper Louisiana, or Missouri terri- 
tory, made a contract in belialf of the United States with 
the newly organized Missouri Fur Company for the return 
of Big White under pain of forfeiture of three thousand 
dollars. This time the effort was successful, and the much- 
suffering Big White was restored to his friends and home, 
after an absence of three years. For this it was agreed 
that the company should receive seven thousand dollars, 
which made Big White a costly visitor for the government. 
^ For Colter this was the beginning of years of strange 
adventures. In the winter of 1806-1807 he camped in the 
valley of the Yellowstone River. When returning in the 
spring of 1807 he met a party directed by Manuel Lisa, 
the famous fur trader, and turned back to the wilderness a 
second time. He was sent on a long and perilous journey 
across the Wind River Mountains and the Teton Range to 
confer with the Blackfoot nation. But he became involved 
in an Indian war and was obliged to fight with the Crows 



188 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

brought him a permanent place in the history 
of the West. The next year he became the 
discoverer of the natural wonders now in- 
cluded in the Yellowstone National Park. 

As none of the Minnetarees would accom- 
pany the explorers to Washington, Chaboneau 
the interpreter, with his wife Sacajawea and 
their child, decided to remain here. " This 
man has been very serviceable to us," says the 

against the Blackfeet. In endeavoring to regain Lisa's 
party he crossed the Yellowstone National Park alone and 
saw the geysers. This was a wonderful journey in its 
extent and its discoveries. The next spring, 1808, he 
started again for the Blackfeet. His companion was killed. 
He was captured, stripped naked, and turned loose to run 
for his life before a multitude of yelling warriors. He ran 
until the blood burst from his nose and mouth. He out- 
stripped all the Indians save one. That one he killed, and 
with a last effort ran on to the river, where he dived under 
fallen logs. There he hid, while the Indians searched above 
him, "screeching and yelling like so many devils," until at 
night he swam down the river and made his way naked 
and half-starved to Lisa's fort. In 1809 he descended the 
Missouri to St. Louis, three thousand miles alone. He met 
Clark and aided him in the preparation of his map, upon 
which Clark traced Colter's route. The last days of the 
discoverer of the Yellowstone Park were passed peacefully 
on a farm above La Charette Creek near St. Louis, where 
he died, probably in 1813. 



ON THE WAY HOME 189 

journal, " and his wife particularly useful 
among the Shoshonees. Indeed, she has 
borne with a patience truly admirable the 
fatigues of so long a route, incumbered with 
the charge of an infant, who is even now 
only nineteen months old. We therefore 
paid him his wages, amounting to five hun- 
dred dollars and thirty-tln-ee cents, including 
the price of a horse and a lodge purchased 
of him." With this we see the last of this 
devoted and courageous woman. 

It was time to start. Big Wliite, uncon- 
scious of the many adventures before him, 
parted with his friends and the weeping 
squaws. The whole village crowded about 
the explorers and assured them that they 
would remember their words and obey the 
Great Father and keep the peace, except when 
attacked by the Sioux, and on August 17 
they started down the river on the last long 
stretch of their homeward jom^ney. 

These friendly relations offer a sharp con- 
trast to the hostile attitude of the early 
Spanish explorers in the south. 



190 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Presently they met Arikaras and Cheyennes, 
with whom they held councils, but these were 
brief for they wished to press on, and on the 
25th they made forty-eight miles with the 
oars. Their meeting with a band of Teton- 
Sioux was less pacific. These treacherous 
savages were forbidden to come to the camp, 
and the men were kept under arms. 

When they encountered traders ascending 
the river they learned news of the civilized 
world. General James Wilkinson, afterwards 
notorious from charges of bribery, and of com- 
plicity with the treason of which Aaron Burr 
was accused, had been made governor of Lou- 
isiana territory.^ In the diary of Sergeant 
Gass there is a reference to the death of 
Alexander Hamilton, who had been killed by 
Burr at Weehawken, opposite New York, on 
July 11, 1804, more than two years before. 
Nothing could more vividly bring out the long 
and remote isolation of these explorers than 
the sergeant's prompt note of this belated 

^ Wilkinson's escapes from convictions by courts-martial 
failed to clear his character. 



ON THE WAY HOME 191 

piece of news : " Mr. Burr & Genl. Hambleton 
fought a Duel, the latter was killed." 

After passing the mouth of the Platte they 
encountered Gravelines, the interpreter whom 
they had sent from Fort Mandan in 1805 to 
convey an Arikara chief (who died in Wash- 
ington), their reports, and some specimens of 
natural history to the capital. 

On they went, passing through the coun- 
try of the Kansas Indians without any of the 
hostilities which they were prepared to meet. 
They encountered more traders and learned 
that the general opinion in the United States 
w^as that they were lost. Even in this last 
stretch of the long journey they suffered from 
scanty supplies, and the journal notes the 
gathering of pawpaw fruit for food. 

On the 20th, near the mouth of the Gascon- 
ade, above St. Louis, they saw some cows 
feeding, '' and the whole party almost invol- 
untarily raised a shout of joy at seeing this 
image of civilization and domestic life." 

At the French village of La Charette the 
inhabitants and traders "were all equally 



192 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

surprised and pleased at our arrival, for they 
had long since abandoned all hopes of ever 
seeing us return." 

On the 21st the village of St. Charles turned 
out to v^elcome them. The next day they passed 
with an encampment of troops at Cold water 
Creek, and then, on " Tuesday [September] 
23, descended the Mississippi and round to 
St. Louis, where we arrived at twelve o'clock, 
and having fired a salute went on shore and 
received the heartiest and most hospitable 
welcome from the whole village." 

They had successfully completed the great- 
est of American explorations, a wilderness 
journey covering eight thousand miles and 
lasting for two years and four months.^ 

^ Great as this journey was, it has sometimes been sub- 
ject to misconceptions. " First across the Continent " is 
the title chosen by Mr. Noah Brooks for his narrative of 
Lewis and Clark. They were not the first. Cabeza de Vaca 
crossed the continent on the south nearly three hundred 
years before. Coronado and De Soto between them practi- 
cally traversed the continent. Of the explorers in British 
North America on the north, two are preeminent, Samuel 
Hearne and Alexander Mackenzie. In 1771-1772 Hearne 
gained the distinction of being the first white man to reach 



ON THE WAY HOME 193 

Captain Lewis at once sent letters to Presi- 
dent Jefferson announcing his return, which 
took nearly a month to reach Washington. Jef- 
ferson's reply, dated October 20, expressed his 
"unspeakable joy "at the news, the first that 
had reached him since Gravelines brought their 
message from the Mandan villages in 1805. 

Early in 1807 the two leaders went to 
Washington, where they met with a most 
enthusiastic reception. Congress voted fif- 
teen hundred acres of public land to Lewis 
and a thousand to Clark. It is characteris- 
tic that Lewis did not wish to receive more 
land than Clark. The officers were voted 
double pay, and each of the other members 

Lake Athabasca and the Coppermine River, which he fol- 
lowed to the Arctic Ocean. He proved that the belief in a 
northwest passage from Hudson Bay to the Pacific was 
unfounded, although the tradition lingered even after his 
journey. In 1793 a more famous explorer, Alexander 
Mackenzie, made a successful expedition westward from 
Lake Athabasca. He passed through the mountains and 
descended the Fraser River in British Columbia to the sea. 
This was the first journey across the continent, with the 
exception of Cabeza de Vaca's flight far to the south. It 
might well be called a " Northwest Passage by land," to 
apply a phrase used by a later traveler. 



194 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

of the expedition received three hundred acres 
of land.^ 

In telling the story of this wonderful jour- 
ney it has not been desirable to give the 
elaborate results of the minute observations 
made by the explorers. In addition to the 

^ Captain Lewis was appointed governor of Louisiana 
territory in 1807 and resigned from the army. Captain 
Clark was appointed general of the militia of the territory 
and Indian agent. 

The whole Purchase had been divided into the terri- 
tory of Orleans, representing roughly the present state of 
Louisiana, and Louisiana territory, which was all the rest 
north of the state. 

Captain Lewis's end was a sad one. On a journey to 
Washington in 1809 he stayed for the night at a rough 
wayside inn near Memphis, Tennessee. In the morning he 
was found dead, probably by his own hand, for he was 
subject to attacks of great depression. 

Captain Clark was offered a commission as brigadier 
general in the War of 1812 with the command held by the 
unsuccessful General Hull on the northwestern frontier, 
but he declined to serve. In 1813 President Madison 
appointed him governor of Missouri territory, as upper 
Louisiana was then called. He served until Missouri 
became a state in 1821, when he was a candidate for 
governor, but was defeated. In 1822 President Monroe 
made him superintendent of Indian affairs, an office 
which he filled successfully until his death at St. Louis 
in 1838. 



Al 



ON THE WAY HOME 195 

many notes upon Indians, soil, flora, and fauna 
in the narrative, the journals are accompanied 
by a long appendix. This contains tables and 
notes giving the names and estimated number 
of the Indian tribes, daily records of weather 
and wind, notes upon the rivers, and care- 
ful memoranda regarding soil, vegetation, and 
animals. These observations and the careful 
surveys and maps testify to the thoroughness 
and knowledge with which the explorers did 
their work, just as the story which we have 
followed shows their ingenuity and persever- 
ance, their tact in dealing with obstacles, and 
their courage in the face of danger. The 
journey which they made is one of the world's 
greatest explorations, and its story has become 
a classic among the travel tales of history. 



LOUISIANA 



Part III 
THE EXPLORATION OF THE WEST 



CHAPTER XX 
PIKE'S EXPLORATIONS 

Ascending the Mississippi. A second expedition westward. 
Hostile Spanisli influence. Into Colorado. The first 
glimpse of Pike's Peak. On the upper Arkansas. Disap- 
pointment and privation. In Spanish territory. Captured 
by the Spaniards. Pike's return and death. 

While the Lewis and Clark expedition was 
struggling across the mountains in 1805 an- 
other explorer was on his way from St. Louis 
northward. Lewis and Clark were sent by 
the President, and theirs was the first govern- 
mental exploration of the Louisiana territory. 
The second exploration was a military one, and 
was the first military expedition sent into the 
new country. It was commanded by Lieuten- 
ant Zebulon M. Pike, a young army officer, 
born in Lamberton, New Jersey, in 1779. 

In 1805 'General James Wilkinson, the com- 
manding officer of the army, ordered Lieutenant 

199 



200 LOUISIANA PUECHASE • 

Pike to ascend the Mississippi to its head 
waters. He was to make the sovereignty 
of the United States known to the Indians 
and Canadian traders. He was to observe 
the country, and to ascertain if possible the 
sources of the Mississippi. 

It was on August 9, 1805, that Lieutenant 
Pike left St. Louis with twenty men to carry 
out his orders. They traveled in a keel boat 
seventy feet long. Provisions for four months 
were carried, but as it turned out nearly nine 
months passed before they returned. They 
ascended the river with few adventures and 
on September 22 they camped near the site 
of the present city of St. Paul, where they 
held a council with the Sioux. 

From this point, undeterred by cold and 
scanty supplies, they made a plucky winter 
journey to Leech Lake (Minnesota), which Pike 
supposed, erroneously, to be the main source 
of the Mississippi. He overlooked the real 
source, Lake Itasca. They reached Leech Lake 
on February 1, but after various explorations 
and some negotiations with the Indians, which 



PIKE'S EXPLORATIONS 201 

included a treaty with the Sioux, they turned 
back. Of the Falls of St. Anthony, Pike gives 
a vivid picture, and his journal is full of 
interest, although less detailed than that of 
Lewis and Clark. On April 30 the expedition 
returned to St. Louis. The lieutenant had 
learned much about the upper river, altliough 
he was mistaken as to its source, and his 
expedition had succeeded in proclaiming the 
dominion of the United States. 

More important and more closely associated 
with our narrative was Pike's second expedi- 
tion. In July, 1806, he left St. Louis with a 
military party numbering twenty-three, under 
orders from General Wilkinson to travel west- 
ward into the interior of Louisiana, to reach 
the sources of the Arkansas River, and to 
explore the mountains of the present state of 
Colorado. He also escorted to their homes 
fifty -one Osage and Pawnee chiefs and their 
people who had visited Washington. 

The first part of Pike's route was by water 
up the Missouri, and then up the Osage to 
the villages of the Osage Indians. Thence 



202 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

he traveled overland through Kansas to a 
Pawnee village. 

The cession of Louisiana with its indefinite 
boundaries had already caused complications 
with the Spaniards, who held the southwest, 
including the present state of Texas. They 
had heard of Pike's expedition and had sent 
an armed force to turn him back from any 
territory which they claimed, or to make 
him a prisoner. Out of this grew trouble 
later. 

The Spaniards had held a council with the 
Pawnees and had made them presents of flags. 
Even after Pike had explained to them the 
American ownership of the country, and an 
old Pawnee warrior had obediently brought 
out a Spanish flag and taking it from its staff 
replaced it with the American flag, the Pawnee 
chief tried to keep the Americans from con- 
tinuing westward, saying that he had prom- 
ised the Spaniards to intercept them. But 
Pike kept resolutely on. 

As they crossed the plains they saw the old 
camps of the Spanish troops who had preceded 



PIKE'S EXPLOKATIONS 203 

tliem. Buffalo, wild horses, and prairie dogs 
furnished variety to the journey, but between 
the Indians on the one hand and Spaniards 
on the other the march was not a cheerful 
one. 

They turned southward and reached the 
Arkansas River near the present town of 
Great Bend, Kansas. There Pike sent some 
of his men down the river, while with the 
others he ascended into Colorado and camped 
at the site of the later city of Pueblo. 

On November 15, while on the Purgatory 
River and about a week before they reached 
Pueblo, Pike made the discovery which has 
served in a sense as his monument. He 
writes : " I thought I could distinguish a 
mountain to our right which appeared like 
a small blue cloud ; viewed it with the spy- 
glass and was still more confirmed in my con- 
jecture ; ... in half an hour they [the moun- 
tains] appeared in full view before us. When 
our small party arrived on the hill they with 
one accord gave three cheers to the Mexican 
Mountains." 



204 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

This was the main range of the Rocky 
Mountains, and the "blue cloud" is known 
to this day as Pike's Peak. 

On the 24th Pike and a few companions left 
the camp which they had made at Pueblo, in the 
hope of climbing the peak. He was not accus- 
tomed to mountains like these or to the rarefied 
air, which makes the distance seem much less. 
The peak was really fifty miles away in an air 
line and a hundred by land. They traveled 
many miles and climbed lower mountain ridges, 
only to find the summit of the " Grand Peak " 
still towering distantly above them. What 
with snow, thin clothing, and scanty food, the 
party were in a wretched condition, and on 
the 27th they turned back to the camp. Thus 
ended the first attempt to climb Pike's Peak.^ 

Continuing their ascent of the Arkansas, 
the party reached the present site of Canon 
City, where the Grand Cailon withheld a pas- 
sage yielded years later to the railroad. 

^ The motto of the later gold seekers in the fifties was 
" Pike's Peak or Bust." Some of them were forced to 
change it to "Busted." Pike might have done the same. 



PIKE'S EXPLORATIONS 



205 



Turning aside they ascended Oil Creek to 
South Park, passed along the South Platte, 
and, continuing, again reached the Arkansas. 




Pike's Peak Tkail at Minnehaha Falls 

In spite of the bitter cold of a Rocky Moun- 
tain winter, Pike ascended the Arkansas to its 
sources near Leadville, and descended it to 
Canon City . This was another disappointment;, 



206 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

for he had thought hhnself on the Red River, 
whose sources he had been instructed to 
discover. 

On January 14, 1807, notwithstanding the 
midwinter weather, Pike pluckily started out 
to find the Red River. He made his way up 
Grape Creek, which flows into the Arkansas, 
and through the Wet Mountain valley. Food 
was scarce. The men were frost-bitten and 
some of them crippled for life. But they 
kept on over the Sangre de Cristo Range into 
the San Luis valley. There he descended the 
Rio Grande. On reaching the entrance of the 
Rio Conejos on January 31, he built a stockade 
and encamped. He was now in southern Colo- 
rado, and his search for the Red River had led 
him into Spanish territory. As a matter of 
fact this river was really the Canadian, which 
rises not far from Santa Fe in New Mexico. 

Pike himself was carrying out Wilkinson's 
orders, but just what these orders were is 
doubtful. Wilkinson was implicated in the 
plot attributed to Aaron Burr to found a 
new empire in the valley of the Mississippi. 




i-^ 



Zebulon M. Pike 



PIKE'S EXPLOEATIONS 207 

The historian McMaster thinks that Pike was 
ordered to descend into Mexico as a part 
of this plot. But Pike himself denied any 
knowledge of such motives, and it seems cer- 
tain that whatever Wilkinson's intentions 
were, Pike was entirely innocent. There is 
a certain mystery over the reasons for this 
invasion of Spanish territory. 

Whatever the exact facts were, the result 
was the arrest of Pike and his party on Febru- 
ary 26 by a Spanish force. It was done under 
the guise of a polite invitation to visit the 
Spanish governor at Santa Fe. Pike was 
taken into Mexico as a prisoner, but after 
many journeys he was escorted through Texas 
and delivered to his countrymen at Natchi- 
toches, Louisiana, on July 1, 1807. 

Thus the expedition had an unfortunate 
ending. But the value of Pike's explora- 
tions of the central part of the Purchase will 
always be an honor to his memory.^ 

^ In the War of 1812 he was made a brigadier general. 
He died in battle, killed when storming the batteries of 
York, the capital of Upper Canada. 



CHAPTER XXI 

EOUTES OF EXPLORATION 

The great water ways. Importance of the Missouri. The 
Santa 'F6, Overland, and Oregon trails. The fur trade 
the chief industry. Its effect on exploration. 

After these pioneer American explorations 
came the extension of the fur trade, the earlier 
expeditions to Santa Fe, the overland journey 
to Astoria in 1811-1813, the exploits of lead- 
ers like William H. Ashley, and the journeys 
of Wyeth and others. But before the story of 
exploration is followed farther it will be help- 
ful to note the beginning of regular routes 
from the great central valley to the vague con- 
fines of Louisiana and beyond to the sea. 

Nature did much for the explorers and 
builders of the West in offering them passage 
on the great rivers flowing from the mountains 
to the central valley of the continent. Man, 

208 



KOUTES OF EXPLORATION 



209 



following in the footsteps of buffalo and elk 
along land routes where nature had smoothed 




Emigrant Train crossing the Plains 

the way and cleft the mountains, wore deeper 
the pathways, which became historic trails. 



210 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Sometimes the paths of animals, of hunters, 
trappers, gold seekers, and emigrants, became 
the route of the railroad, — a route with an 
almost forgotten history. 

Without the water routes the exploration 
and later development of the vast interior 
known as Louisiana would have been a differ- 
ent story. The Great Lakes offered a high- 
way for the French. The Wisconsin River 
led them to the first explorations of the Mis- 
sissippi and the discovery that it flowed to 
the Gulf of Mexico and not to the western 
sea. In the early Spanish history the navi- 
gation of rivers played an insignificant part, 
but for French explorers, trappers, and traders 
the water ways were all- import ant. 

East of the Mississippi the Ohio was the 
greatest of the historic water ways. It was 
down the Ohio and other tributaries of the 
Mississippi that there poured the wave of 
pioneer conquest which was to sweep away 
any foreign possession of Louisiana. 

West of the Mississippi there were the 
Osage, the Kansas, the Arkansas, the Red 



ROUTES OF EXPLOEATION 211 

River, and the Platte, all early routes of con- 
sequence, and, by far the greatest from every 
point of view, there was the Missouri.^ 

The water which has its source at the head 
of the Jefferson fork of the Missouri, on the 
Rocky Mountain dividing line between Mon- 
tana and Idaho, reaches the Gulf of Mexico 
after a journey of forty-two hundred and 
twenty-one miles. The enormous extent of 
the Mississippi's drainage basin is illustrated 
by the fact that the water which passes 
through the great river's mouth to the sea 
comes from no fewer than twenty-eight states 
and the Indian territory.^ The Missouri-Mis- 
sissippi reckoned as a continuous water route 
forms the longest river in the world. Its 

^ The mouth of the Missouri was discovered by Mar- 
quette and Joliet in 1673. The river was entered about 
1700 by the French, who ascended farther and farther, 
until Chittenden estimates that by the time St. Louis was 
founded in 1761 the river had been explored for a thousand 
miles. In 1801 Lewis and Clark had been preceded by 
white men almost up to the mouth of the Yellowstone. 

2 Mr. George Cary Eggleston's story, " The Last of the 
Flat-boats," gives a suggestive popular sketch of the magni- 
tude, political consequence, and peculiarities of this system. 



212 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

tortuous way, its frequent changes of course, 
and its destructive floods have presented prob- 
lems yet unsolved. The time may come when 
great reservoirs will gather the surplus waters 
of floods like those of the spring of 1903, but, 
in spite of the attempts of man, the Missouri 
remains as unfettered as when Marquette and 
Joliet shrank appalled from the seething tor- 
rent at its mouth. Historically the part of 
the Missouri has been of the first importance. 
" For fully a hundred years " (up to about 
1875), says Chittenden, " the history of the 
Missouri River was the history of the country 
through which it flowed." The explorer, trap- 
per and trader, priest and soldier, prospector, 
miner, and buffalo hunter, and the military 
forces of the United States^ swelled the number 

^ As early as 1819, when the first steamboat entered the 
Missouri, arrangements were made, but not carried out, for 
the transportation of troops to the Yellowstone. In 1825 
troops were carried in keel boats propelled by wheels 
turned by hand. After 1855 the steamboat played a large 
part in military operations along the Missouri and its tribu- 
taries. Of the various dramatic incidents of the steamboat 
days in the remote Northwest, one of the most stirring was 
the run of the Far West after the Custer massacre in 



ROUTES OF EXPLOEATION 213 

of travelers upon this great water way. The 
early nineteenth century brought a new and 
most important era in the coming of the steam- 
boat.^ Another chapter w^as opened later in 
the transportation of troops ; and still another 
a little later in the northwestern discoveries 
of gold.^ Taking the Missouri-Mississippi as 

1876. Down the narrow and unknown Big Horn, down 
the dangerous Yellowstone and the Missouri, the Far 
West was driven with the speed of a railway train, bring- 
ing to Bismarck her load of wounded soldiers and the 
full reports of the battle — a thousand miles in fifty-four 
hours. 

In 1877 General Miles's good fortune in finding a steam- 
boat near the mouth of the Muscleshell (Musselshell) en- 
abled him to gain sufficiently on Chief Joseph and the 
fleeing Nez Percys, who were nearing British soil, to over- 
take them within fifty miles of the boundary line. 

^ A steamboat was built at Pittsburg as early as 1811 
and descended to New Orleans. 

^ In 18G3 came the rich Alder Gulch discovery of gold 
placers on a branch of the Jefferson fork of the IVIissouri, 
and the following year the gold of Last Chance Gulch laid 
the foundation of the future capital of Montana, — Helena. 
The discoveries of mineral wealth which followed were the 
beginnings of Montana's prosperity, and one immediate 
effect was a vast increase in steamboat traffic. " Prior to 
1864," says Chittenden, "there had been only six steam- 
boat arrivals at Fort Benton. In 1866 and 1867 there were 



214 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

a whole, one may well agree with Chittenden 
that no river on the continent has an equal 
record. As for the Mississippi alone, the great 
central river or trunk line, whose tributaries 
drain both the Alleghenies and the Rocky 
Mountains, its commanding position in polit- 
ical as well as economic history is only imper- 
fectly illustrated in Madison's comment in 

seventy. The trade touched highwater mark in 1867 and 
at this time presented one of the most extraordinary devel- 
opments known to the history of commerce. There were 
times when thirty or forty steamboats were on the river 
between Fort Benton and the month of the Yellowstone." 

But just as the steamboat succeeded the pirogues, or 
" log dugouts," the " bull boats " of buffalo hide, the mack- 
inaw boats built of planks, and the keel boats worked by 
oar and sail which formed the representative craft before 
steam, so the coming of the railroad supplanted the steam- 
boat after a contest which lasted from about 1859, when 
the railroad reached St. Joseph, Missouri, to about 1887. 

To-day there are probably more steamboats on the 
Yukon River in Alaska than are to be found on the Mis- 
sissippi above St. Louis, and several times the number of 
the Missouri River boats, since the Missouri is nearly aban- 
doned. One minor practical outcome of American expan- 
sion and development is shown in the fact that many of the 
pilots and other steamboat men trained on these rivers have 
been taken to the Yukon, where, it is said, their skill is 
making serious accidents a thing of the past. 



EOUTES OF EXPLORATION 215 

1802, that " The Mississippi is everything to 
the Western people: the Hudson, the Dela- 
ware, the Potomac, and all the navigable 
streams of the United States formed into one 
stream." The great steamboat traffic of the 
Mississippi and its tributaries, which employed 
four thousand boats in 1850, forms a history 
distinctive in its methods, its economics, and 
its picturesqueness.^ 

Even before the great water ways first knew 
the canoe of the explorer, a Spaniard had made 
a wonderful land journey which traversed in 
part a route famous nearly three centuries 
later as the highway of traders, soldiers, and 
emigrants. The first association of the Santa 
Fe trail with white men goes back to the 
journey of Coronado, but it was not until the 
early nineteenth century that the path from 
Independence on the Missouri to Santa Fe, 

1 Mark Twain's " Life on the Mississippi " and his 
" Roughing- It" have a distinct historical value as pictures 
of the past life of the water ways and the interior of the 
West. The last stage of the contest between the steam- 
boat and the railroad below St. Louis has been dramatized, 
as it were, in Mr. G. W. Ogden's novel, "Tennessee Todd." 



216 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

New Mexico, became a trading route. ^ Origi- 
nally the way was west by Council Grove and 
along the Arkansas to Bent's Fort, which was 
east of La Junta, and thence south, by the 
Raton Pass, to Santa Fe. Later the river 
was left at Cimarron Crossing, near Dodge 
City, and the route traversed the desert in 
a nearly direct southwesterly line. In the 
country of the Missouri-Mississippi there 
were manufactured goods. In the Spanish 
Southwest there was a waiting and eager 
market.^ Thus, before the close of the first 

^ For a time Blue Mills, Missouri, was a starting point. 
The year 1817 brought the first stage of steamboat naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi, and two years later the first steamboat 
reached the Missouri. The appearance of the steamboat 
brought more traffic for the trail. Later, Independence was 
found a more convenient point of departure. 

2 The first trading expedition from the iipper Mississippi 
country to Santa F6 was about 1760, according to Captain 
Amos Stoddard's " Sketches of Louisiana," and resulted in 
the imprisonment of the would-be traders and confiscation 
of their goods. Under Spanish rule there was some inter- 
course but no trade of consequence, and the second trading 
expedition is noted by Chittenden as that of William Mor- 
rison of Kaskaskia, Illinois, afterwards a partner of the 
famous Spanish fur trader, Manuel Lisa. This was in 1807. 



EOUTES OF EXPLOKATION 217 

quarter of the century, there began that 
" commerce of the prairie " which made the 
Santa Fe trail, down to the coming of the 
railroad, the greatest land trading route of 
the West. Traversing as the trail did the 
haunts of the fiercest Indians of the plains, 

Pike's journey, and his involuntary journey to Santa F6, 
formed the first visit of an officer of our government. Just 
before Pike the Spaniards had sent an armed force to the 
Pawnee villages at Kansas to enlist the interest of the 
Indians against the Americans. There were various minor 
expeditions over the trail in the first twenty years of the 
century, including the journeys of A. P. Chouteau and 
Julius de Munn in 1815-1817; but William Becknell of 
Missouri, " the father of the Santa Fe trail," is credited by 
Chittenden with the founding of this route commercially. 
Inman gives the date of his first expedition as 1812, but 
this should probably be later. The earlier traders had 
caravans of horses and mules. Wheeled vehicles were intro- 
duced probably about 1825, and Becknell was the first to 
take wagons over the trail. In that day cheap domestic 
cotton cloths could be sold for over two dollars a yard in 
Santa F6. The possibilities of trade with New Mexico 
were seen by Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, 
" the father of the West," who introduced a bill in 1824, 
which became a law, for the survey of a route from the 
Missouri to New Mexico. But the survey was imperfectly 
carried out and the traders followed the old wagon route, 
portions of which are now followed by the main line of the 
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa F^ Railroad. 



218 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

commerce was forced to fight its way. The 
Santa Fe trail was the first great plains 
route for the interchange of trade between 
white men. Its history began with the Span- 
iards. It was a history of traffic rather than 
of emigrant travel, but a history second to 
none in its record of peril and adventure.^ 

The Oregon as well as the Santa Fe trail 
had its real beginning at Independence, Mis- 
souri. From St. Louis the journey was by 
water. The overland traffic, when the river 
was left behind for the journey across the 
plains, led to the foundation of Independence, 
Missouri, — which preserves its identity, — and 
Westport, afterwards absorbed into Kansas 
City which was laid out in 1838. Forty-one 
miles west from Independence the two trails 
parted company, and there for a time stood 
a sign announcing the great journey before 
the traveler in the simple words, "Road 
to Oregon." To the northwest the "road" 

^ The romance and adventure of this picturesque old trail 
is well illustrated in Colonel Henry Inman's " The Old Santa 
F6 Trail." Unfortunately the author's history is not reliable. 



KOUTES OF EXPLORATION 219 

stretched away to the Cokimbia, a distance of 
two thousand miles. ^ The Oregon trail was 

^ The trail crossed the Kansas River near the city 
of Topeka, reached the Platte River in Nebraska, and 
followed up the Platte along the south and then the 
north fork to Fort Laramie, which was a station much in 
use for rest and repairs, since there was no other similar 
halting place until Fort Bridger was reached, three hun- 
dred and ninety-four miles beyond. The trail continued 
along the North Platte, which was forded near Caspar, 
Wj^oming, but was left behind a few miles farther on, since 
the trail continued westward, passing a famous landmark 
near the valley of the Sweetwater which was named Inde- 
pendence Rock, probably by Ashley, before 1830. From 
the Devil's Gate, a remarkable canon through which the 
Sweetwater flows, the trail went on to the great South 
Pass in Wyoming, between the Wind River Mountains 
and the Sweetwater Range. The first discovery of this 
pass was due not to Hunt and the Astorians of 1811-1813, 
but, in Chittenden's opinion, to one of the parties of the 
fur trader and explorer, Alexander Henry, in 1823. At 
Fort Bridger, built in 1843 by the famous trapper, explorer, 
and guide, James Bridger, who discovered Great Salt Lake, 
the traveler had journeyed over a thousand miles. The 
trail kept on in a northwesterly direction, passing Fort 
Hall on the Snake River, and Fort Boise, and near Pen- 
dleton reaching the Umatilla River, which was followed to 
the Columbia, eighteen hundred and thirty-five miles from 
Independence. Two hundred miles down the Columbia the 
end of the trail was reached at Fort Vancouver, opposite 
the mouth of the Willamette. 



220 LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 

of peculiar consequence from its relation not 
only to trade but also to the settlement of 
the country beyond the mountains, a country 
which could not have been settled by Ameri- 
cans without the control of land routes made 
possible by the acquisition of Louisiana. 

Another of the great routes which was 
partly identical with the Oregon trail ran 
directly westward, — the Overland trail, as it 
came to be known, from St. Joseph, Missouri, 
and also from Council Bluffs along the Platte 
to Fort Laramie and westward. This route 
left the Oregon trail near Fort Hall, and 
crossed the desert to the Truckee River and 
California.^ This was the main route of the 
overland gold seekers and emigrants in '49 
and subsequent years. To the south there 

^ The trail turned south and west beyond Fort Bridger, 
and the usual route was known as the Salt Lake Trail, 
which is described by Colonel Henry Inman in his pictur- 
esque though not infallible volume, '< The Great Salt Lake 
Trail." There were at least three other early trails of 
considerable but lesser consequence. The exact identifica- 
tion of these routes is difficult, but Chittenden's itineraries 
are recommended for consultation. 



KOUTES OF EXPLORATION 221 

was, later in the century, a mail route from 
Fort Smith, Arkansas, southwest through 
Texas and west to California. 

Three great land routes and one vast water 
way are to be remembered as the most potent 
earlier means of traversing Louisiana, devel- 
oping its trade and reaching the country 
beyond the mountains. On the maps of 
to-day, while the routes are identical only in 
part, we find the Santa Fe trail succeeded by 
the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, 
the Oregon trail by the Oregon Short Line 
and other railroads, and the Overland trail by 
the Union and Central Pacific. 

Greatest of all industries in the early his- 
tory of Louisiana was the trade in furs, 
which centered in St. Louis. It was a traffic 
inherited from the French, who were far more 
active in its development than the Spaniards, 
although certain of the latter, like Manuel Lisa, 
were traders of renown. The mineral wealth 
of the mountains lay unrevealed for nearly 
half a century after American occupation. 
Agriculture, save within easy distance of the 



222 LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 

lower Missouri, expanded but little until after 
the Civil War. A complete history of upper 
Louisiana to 1843, when emigration to the 
West began, would be in larger part a his- 
tory of the fur trade. In 1847 it was esti- 
mated that the annual value of the St. Louis 
fur trade for the preceding forty years had 
been between two hundred and three hundred 
thousand dollars. The conduct of the trade 
from 1806 to 1843 in a country swarming 
with hostile Indians is estimated ^ to have 
cost the lives of three hundred traders and 
the destruction of property valued at over 
two hundred thousand dollars. 

The management of the business was not 
a question of individuals or firms, but of 
great companies and of combinations. In 
the north there had been early exemplars. 
In Canada there was the far-reaching Hudson 
Bay Company, organized in 1670 with the 
picturesque adventurer, Pierre Radisson, as 
its originator, and Prince Rupert at its head, 
and there was also its sometime rival, the 

^ Chittenden. 



EOUTES OF EXPLORATION 223 

Northwest Fur Company. The Mackinaw 
Company had the trade of the Great Lakes. 
From the time of the Louisiana cession to 
1845, St. Louis was the headquarters of the 
fur trade of the far West and the home of 
various companies with longer or shorter 
careers — the American, Rocky Mountain, 
Missouri, and companies and firms whose 
rivalry in the field, like the hostility of the 
Hudson Bay and Northwest companies in the 
North, added some dark pages to tlie frontier 
history of the continent. In the Northwest, 
John Jacob Astor, seeing the possibilities of 
the fur trade, founded Astoria at the mouth 
of the Columbia in 1811 — an unsuccessful 
experiment — and began an effort to reorgan- 
ize and combine the fur trade. 

At once this commercial activity quickened 
the exploration of the interior. The trappers 
sent from St. Louis ascended the Osage and 
Kansas rivers, and the Platte, or went south- 
ward along the Arkansas. The Missouri be- 
came the great thoroughfare for the traders 
and trappers passing to and from the streams 



224 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

issuing from the distant mountains. The 
bourgeois or manager, the clerk, the hunter 
and trapper, camp-keeper, voyageur or boat- 
man, the novices or '' pork eaters," and the 
artisans represented the various grades en- 
rolled on the books of the old fur companies. 
They were the regular army of the wilderness 
traffic, and in addition there were the soldiers 
of fortune, or free trapjoers, who scorned 
allegiance to any standard save their own. 
'' Gamesters of the Wilderness " ^ were these 
adventurers, staking their lives against Indians 
or rivals as freely as they staked their earn- 
ings when they returned to St. Louis after 
months or perhaps years of savage isolation. 
They were not without reproach, but of fear 
they knew nothing. Theirs was the work of 
pioneers and pathfinders, not in the cause of 
settlement and possession, but for the sake 
of the commerce afforded by the wild things 
of the streams and forests. There were the 
buffalo hunters also, slaughtering for hides 

^ An apt title given by INIiss A. C. Laiit in her vivid 
narrative, " The Story of the Trapper." 



ROUTES OF EXPLOEATION 225 

alone, and at their door is to be laid the 
larger responsibility for the massacres which 
have swept the buffalo from the plains in a 
generation. But these butchers were a race 
apart from the earlier trappers. The history 
of the American fur trade holds names like 
those of Chouteau, Lisa, Ashley, Sublette, 
Vanderburgh, and Bridger, which are of large 
significance in the early history of the West. 
Nor is theirs simply a saga of brave deeds, of 
wild adventure and wilder license, since the 
part which they played in the exploration 
of the AYest was of immediate and lasting 
consequence. 



CHAPTER XXII 

TYPICAL PATHFINDERS 

Trade seeking the Northwest. Hunt and the "overland 
Astorians." Ashley and Wyeth. Bonneville's journeys. 
Explorations by Fremont. 

Of the many adventurous journeys to the 
vague western boundaries of Louisiana and 
beyond, the most remarkable for the first 
decade of the American fur trade was the 
expedition of Wilson Price Hunt, leader of 
the "overland Astorians." This expedition 
was due to the commercial enterprise of John 
Jacob Astor. The journey of Lewis and Clark 
had shown that the upper Missouri and the 
country beyond the mountains was rich in 
furs. Mr. Astor saw a tempting opportunity 
for trading posts from the mouth of the 
Columbia to its source and along the Missouri, 
an opportunity which offered not only trade 

22(5 



TYPICAL PATHFINDEKS 227 

with our East but a most profitable commerce 
with China and Japan. In a word, this Ger- 
man "captain of industry" saw a practicable 
northwest passage, — a possible means of 
reaching that rich Oriental trade which had 
tempted the voyages of Columbus and of later 
seekers for a route to the Spice Islands and 
Cathay. 

In 1808 Mr. Astor organized the American 
Fur Company, and later the Pacific Fur Com- 
pany, the latter merely a name for the branch 
of the first company which was to operate 
on the Pacific coast. Two expeditions were 
planned, one to go by sea and one by land. 
The ship carrying the former left New York 
in 1810, reaching the mouth of the Colum- 
bia the following spring. The foundation of 
Astoria^ was accomplished under unfortunate 
auspices, and the result Avas a failure that need 
not be dwelt upon, since our present concern 

1 AVashington Trving's classic "Astoria " needs no recom- 
mendation. Chittenden, "History of tlie American Fur 
Trade," Vol. I, chap, xiv, furnishes some judicial com- 
ments upon Trving's accuracy and answers the criticisms 
of H. II. Bancroft. 



228 louisia:n'a purchase 

lies with Hunt's overland journey, which may 
be said to have opened the Oregon trail. 

In March, 1811, Hunt left St. Louis with 
his party and ascended the Missouri. His 
original purpose was to continue up the Mis- 
souri and the Yellowstone. But tidings of 
hostile Blackfeet on the route induced him to 
leave the river at the country of the Arikaras, 
thirteen hundred and twenty-five miles above 
the mouth of the Missouri, and to make the 
journey by land. His party, sixty-four in num- 
ber, turned westward into an unknown country. 
They passed near the Black Hills, and made 
their way through the Big Horn and Wind 
River mountains to the valley of Green River. 
Thence they crossed the divide to the Snake 
River, and after many bitter experiences in 
the mountain winter they reached the Colum- 
bia late in January, 1812, and on February 15 
arrived at Astoria. 

This journey occupied three hundred and 
forty daj's, and the distance according to 
Hunt's estimate was thirty-five hundred miles. 
That summer there was sent back from Astoria 



TYPICAL PATHFINDERS 229 

a party which, owing to various bhmders, 
spent nearly as long a time on its return 
journey, so that it was nearly two years before 
news of Hunt reached St. Louis. These two 
expeditions showed the way to Oregon. But 
various mistakes in management, the war 
with Great Britain, and the approach of an 
English war vessel resulted in the abandonment 
of Astoria and the end of Mr. Astor's dream of 
a northwest trading route to the Orient.^ 

The character of the men who were the 
first to learn the secrets of the Louisiana wil- 
derness is illustrated in the experiences of 
General William H. Ashley. A Virginian by 
birth, he was elected lieutenant governor of 
Missouri in 1820, but for a time fortune seemed 
to forsake him. He was the head of the Rocky 
Mountain Fur Company, but in his first expe- 
dition he lost a keel boat and cargo of furs 
valued at ten thousand dollars. Li 1823 his 
men were overwhelmed by liostile Arikaras, 

^ Perhaps Mr. J. J. Hill, the father of the Great Northern 
Railroad, has come nearer the realization of the dream than 
any of Mr. Astor's successors. 



230 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

and in 1824 he was defeated for governor of 
Missouri. But in the end the indomitable 
will which conquered the West for Americans 
brought him substantial results as explorer 
and trader. He planned and led expeditions 
into the interior. Once he journeyed to the 
mouth of the Yellowstone, and again to the 
country of the Arikaras. In 1824 he led his 
men to the Green River valley, in 1825 to 
Great Salt Lake, and the following year he 
made his way again to the mountains. His 
adventurous career and romantic journeys have 
invested his name with a peculiar distinction 
in the early history of Missouri. 

Among the premature prophets of the great- 
ness of the West was one Hall J. Kelley, a 
Boston school teacher, who began to preach 
the rich opportunities of Oregon as early as 
1815. Through his influence Nathaniel J. 
Wyeth of Cambridge learned the fascination 
of the vaguely known West, and presently 
there came to him an idea not unlike the Astor 
plan for a trading company on the Colum- 
bia. After various difficulties he organized an 



TYPICAL PATHFINDERS 231 

expedition and started from St. Louis in 1832, 
under the guidance of the famous fur traders, 
the Sublettes. They crossed the plains to 
Pierre's Hole, now Teton Basin in Idaho, and 
journeyed on to Fort Walla Walla in Washing- 
ton, reaching Fort Vancouver near the mouth 
of the Columbia on October 29. Wyeth re- 
turned to the East and in 1834 led a second 
expedition across the plains and mountains to 
Oregon. So far as commercial results were 
concerned, Wyeth's efforts met with faiku'e. 
But his journeys, remarkable in themselves, 
are worth citing to illustrate not only the 
courage and the spirit of adventure which 
impelled these explorers and traders, but also 
because Wyeth attracted public attention to 
the overland route to Oreo^on and aided in its 
early occupation by Americans.^ 

In spite of their carefnl notes on fauna and 
tlora and meteorological and other phenomena, 

1 Wyeth's first expedition ^vas described by tlie orni- 
thologist, J. K. Tovvnsend, who accompanied him with tlie 
botanist, Thomas Nuttall. In 1898 Wyeth's own letters 
and journals were published by the Oregon Historical 
Society, edited by Professor F. G. Young. 



232 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Lewis and -Clark were not professional scien- 
tists, but scientific explorers were in the van- 
guard of Western discovery. As early as 
1809-1811, John Bradbury, an English natu- 
ralist, traveled up the Mississippi and the Mis- 
souri, frequently risking his life in his search 
for specimens. Bradbury, Thomas Nuttall, 
J. K. Townsend, an ornithologist, and H. M. 
Brackenrido^e were with Hunt and Lisa before 
the former left the Missouri for his overland 
journey, and they published the results of their 
studies. The famous painter and student of 
Indians, George Catlin, ascended the Missouri 
in 1832, and painted many portraits of Indians 
which are preserved in the United States 
National Museum at Washington. In 1833 
Maximilian, Prince of Wied, traveled up the 
Missouri and spent a winter in the Northwest. 
His book, " Travels in the Interior of North 
America," remains the most elaborate work 
published upon this section of the West. 
Another scientific explorer was J. N. Nicollet, 
whose studies in the far West between 1836 
and 1840 have a permanent value. 



TYPICAL PATHFINDERS 233 

The explorations of Captain Bonneville, 
U.S.A., from 1832 to 1835, owe much to the 
genius of Washington Irving. Bonneville had 
obtained leave from the War Department to 
make the journey at his own expense, in 
order to observe the country and the people. 
He himself seems to have thought more of 
the possibilities of trade. 

He ascended the Platte to Green River, fol- 
lowing the usual route of the trappers, and 
made a camp on Green River, west of South 
Pass, but his trapping was a failure. He sent 
out an expedition, which was the second party 
of American trappers to cross from the neigh- 
borhood of Great Salt Lake to California. 
Bonneville himself, after much journeying in 
the mountains, crossed into Oregon, but the 
Hudson Bay Company controlled the trade. 
After another winter in the mountains he 
returned in the summer of 1835. 

Bonneville's long stay in the mountains 
yielded scanty results. He made a map of 
the head waters of the Missouri, Yellowstone, 
Snake, and other rivers and the country around 



234 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Great Salt Lake, and another map of the 
country westward to the Pacific. In many of 
their features, however, Gallatin had antici- 
pated him. Captain Chittenden credits Bonne- 
ville with the discovery of Humboldt River 
and lakes, the location of San Joaquin River, 
California, and the mapping out of the country 
around the sources of the Big Horn and Green 
rivers. He was the first to take wagons 
through South Pass to Green River. But, 
through his meeting with Washington Irving, 
Bonneville was enabled to l)e more useful to 
Hterature than to science or commerce. 

Although the government was prompt in 
organizing the first exploration of the Loui- 
siana territory under Lewis and Clark, and 
another under Pike, it was not until 1842 that 
official explorations were resumed. Lieuten- 
ant J. C. Fremont, U.S.A., who had already 
traveled with Nicollet in the West, was com- 
missioned to explore the mountains. Most of 
his work lay to the westward of the Louisiana 
Purchase, but it is inseparably connected with 
it, since his object was largely to find the 



TYPICAL PATHFINDEliS 235 

best routes from Louisiana territory west- 
ward through the mountains. In June, 1842, 
he started from the mouth of the Kansas 
River and made his way up the Platte, through 
a country alive with hostile Indians, to the 
South Pass. He explored the Wind River 
Mountains, and the highest bears his name. 

In 1843 he led a second expedition to the 
heart of the mountains. He found the head 
waters of the Colorado, reached Salt Lake, 
and ascended to the Columbia. He returned 
through the mountains in winter, and after 
many hardships led his exhausted followers 
west to Sutter's Fort on the Sacramento in 
California. In the spring he returned through 
the mountains. 

In 1845-1846 he made another journey 
through the midst of the Rockies. At this 
time there was trouble with the Mexicans, 
who held California. Congress, on May 13, 
1846, had declared that war with Mexico 
existed, but long before government troops 
reached California, Fremont led the settlers 
in an uprising which resulted in the freedom 



236 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

of northern California. Fremont was elected 
governor. His tronl)les with General Kearny, 
who commanded the American troops, his 
arrest, and his enthusiastic reception on his 
return east form no part of tliis history. 
Subsequently he led two more expeditions, 
one in 1848 along the upper Rio Grande in 
a finally successful effort to find a route to 
California, and another in 1853, wdien he 
crossed the continent, finding passes through 
the mountains on the linos of latitude 38° 
and 39°. 

The glamour of Fremont's '' pathfinding," 
wdiich brought him the first Republican nomi- 
nation for the presidency in 1856, has not sus- 
tained the more critical examination of later 
years. In some of his discoveries Fremont 
had been anticipated, but the knowledge of 
passes and mountain routes which he in a 
sense popularized has proved of value in 
many different Avays. Aside from this and 
the fact that lie really explored much new 
territory, the courage, endurance, and on the 
whole the good management shown in his 



TYPICAL PATHFINDERS 237 

various expeditions are sufficient to make 
them memorable in Western annals. 

After Fremont came an era of government 
explorations, reconnaissances, and surveys 
which established routes, indicated the lines 
of future railroads, and chose the sites of the 
forts — the frontier posts of order and of 
law. The West was becoming better known, 
but before Fremont there was a literature 
of Western exj)loration, English and Amer- 
ican, which may be roughly described as 
beginning with Jonathan Carver's " Travels," 
published in 1778. This curious literature^ 
was rare and fragmentary before the Biddle 

^ In 1823 John D. Hunter published in Philadelphia his 
"Manners and Customs of Several Indian Tribes located 
West of the Mississippi." The author was a captive among 
the Kickapoos, and claimed to have crossed the continent 
with some Osage Indians and to have seen the Pacific. 
Samuel Parker's " Journal of an Exploring Tour across 
tiie Rocky Mountains " appeared in 18-38. Wyeth's Memoir 
was included in Cushing's Report in 1 830, J. K. Townsend's 
" Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky ^Mountains " was 
puldished in 1830. Faruham's well-known "Travels in 
the Great Western Prairies," etc., was issued in 184.3, and 
was followed in 1840 by G. F. Ruxton's "Life in the Far 
AVest." The early memoirs of travelers and liunters, the 
tales of Indians, the various personal narratives, and the 



238 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

edition of Lewis and Clark and the meetings 
of Bradbury and Brackenridge upon the first 
stages of the overland Astorian expedition, 
but it expanded to considerable proportions 
later. All these additions to knowledge of the 
West stimulated curiosity in the older states. 

recollections of Colonel R. B. Marcy and other army officers 
afford an inviting field for the curious. Among the num- 
ber may be cited Jacob Fowler's "Journal," relating this 
surveyor's journey to the sources of the Rio Grande and 
his varied adventures in 1821-1822 ; Josiah Gregg's " Com- 
merce of the Prairies," an account of the Santa F^ trail, 
published in 1844 ; Charles Larpenteur's " Forty Years a Fur 
Trader" (1833-1872); and Father Pierre Jean de Smet's 
"Oregon Missions" (1847). The library of the Wisconsin 
State Historical Society, the Mercantile Library in St. Louis, 
the Lenox Library (now a branch of the New York Public 
Library), and certain private libraries like those of Edward 
E. Ayer of Chicago, H. H. Bancroft of San Francisco, and 
the Hon. Peter Koch of Bozeman, Montana, are rich in 
examples of this early literature. The introduction to 
" Tales of an Indian Camp," published in London in 1829, 
offers this quaint passage : " In the year 1695 a number of 
savants associated in Paris for the purpose of procuring 
information regarding the Western Indians. They were 
called shortly ' The Theoretical and Speculative Society of 
Paris,' but their title at large was ' The Society for prose- 
cuting Pesearches in the Western Hemisphere and for pro- 
curing Speculations to be made and History drawn up of 
the Origin and History of the Ancient and Present Inhab- 
itants.' Madame Maintenon became a member, forbidding, 
however, the Society to speculate upon her affairs." 



LOUISIANA 



Part IV 
THE BUILDING OF THE WEST 



CHAPTER XXIII 
A FORMATIVE PERIOD 

Influences of the westward movement. A time of expansion. 
Development of the Mississippi Valley. Influences upon 
upper Louisiana. Types of the middle period. The soldier's 
work in the West. Labors of missionaries. Whitman's 
journey and its real purpose. 

In the era of exploration, which may be 
roughly defined as the first half of tlie last cen- 
tury, the interior commerce of upper Louisiana 
was represented for the most part by the wares 
of trappers and by the traders of the Santa 
Fe trail. 

But the history of the West was unfolding 
rapidly. In the lower country there were the 
increasing settlement and business interests 
of the state of Louisiana/ admitted in 1812, 

^ The picturesque history of Louisiana may be gathered 
from a study of B. F. French's " Historical Collections of 
Louisiana " and Gayarre's " History of Louisiana." More 

241 



242 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

of the Southern territories to the east of the 
Mississippi, and of Arkansas, which became 
a territory in 1819. East of the great river 
the pressure of settlement was increased by 
the European immigration which followed the 
close of the Napoleonic wars. There were for- 
eign as well as domestic reasons for the fact 
that the population of Ohio increased from 
230,760 to 581,295 between 1810 and 1820, 
and that of Indiana from 24,520 to 197,198. 

By 1820 eight states had been formed in 
the Mississippi valley and the center of popu- 
lation had moved from a point east of Balti- 
more in 1789 over a hundred and twenty miles 
westward. The commerce of the Ohio and the 
lower Mississippi was quickened not only by 
the productiveness of new settlers but also 
and immeasurably by the introduction and 
rapid expansion of steamboat transportation. 

The influence of the steamboat is empha- 
sized in the history of St. Louis. In 1800, 
nearly forty years after its foundation, the 

popular and more accessible are the writings of G. W. 
Cable, Miss Grace King, and the references in McMaster. 



A FORMATIVE PEIUOD 243 

population was only 925. Hardly more than 
a thousand residents were to be credited to 
St. Louis in the year of the Louisiana Pur- 
chase. In 1810 it was a village of only 1400 
souls. But in 1817 the first steamboat reached 
St. Louis and marked the opening of a traffic 
imperial in its range. From the upper navi- 
gable waters of the Mississippi and Missouri, 
from the Ohio and the Illinois, and from New 
Orleans, the steamboat brought the trade of 
the vast region bounded by the Alleghenies and 
Rocky Mountains, and in addition the com- 
merce of the eastern seaboard and traffic with 
foreign countries found their way up the Mis- 
sissippi and centered in St. Louis. With such 
a history it is inevitable that the possibility of 
sending the modern traffic of the West by 
water to the sea, and reopening the once vig- 
orous life of this great water way, should be 
a subject of perennial interest. A century 
after the Louisiana Purchase finds the West 
concerned with the possibilities of various 
canal routes, the improvement of river naviga- 
tion, and the possibilities of deep-sea traffic 



244 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

direct to St. Louis, while the East, so far as 
New York may be held representative, has 
been debating the value of an improved Erie 
Canal in holding the commerce of the West. 
History repeats itself, but there is no repeti- 
tion of the argument of Eastern Federalists 
that the purchase of Louisiana was a waste 
of money upon a profitless wilderness. 

On the North and East in the early years of 
the last century there were multiplying factors 
of growth. The War of 1812 settled finally 
the ownership of the whole "Old Northwest," 
comprising Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, 
Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota. The 
swift growth of this great section swelled the 
commerce of the river, although the comple- 
tion of the Erie Canal in 1825 gave the 
Northwest an outlet directly east. 

In the Sonth the introduction of the cot- 
ton gin stimulated a movement of Southern 
planters toward virgin fields farther west. 
In the Southwest there developed the stormy 
early history of Texas, with its American 
invasion and possession, and its admission as 



A FORMATIVE PERIOD 245 

a state in 1845. From the British possessions 
to the Gulf the American pressure westward 
was everywhere in evidence. 

The movement of pioneer settlers across the 
plains to Oregon, whose definition and posses- 
sion afforded so acute an issue between the 
United States and Great Britain/ began in the 
thirties. In 1846 came our war with Mexico 
and another expansion westward which in- 
ckided the distant Southwest and California, 
the goal of treasure seekers during the years 
following 1848. 

Many of the conditions and changes sketched 
so summarily affected the old Louisiana ter- 
ritory only indirectly so far as settlement was 
concerned, save for the growth of the states 
of Louisiana and Missouri and of Arkansas. 
The interior of the Louisiana Purchase was 
occupied more slowly, but from the date of 
acquisition the cities of New Orleans and 

^ The rival claims of England and America to Oregon 
in 1845-184G gave rise to the historic watchword "Fifty- 
four forty or fight," but this line was sensibly abandoned 
in favor of a compromise on the line of 49° — a continua- 
tion of the dividing line east of the mountains. 



246 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

St. Louis showed a swiftly increasing com- 
mercial consequence. The tide of settlement 
overleapt the Missouri-Mississippi and showed 
itself in eastern Kansas in the thirties. Of 
this settlement and its later political relations 
something remains to be said in another 
chapter. The purpose of this rapid summary 
is merely to indicate the general conditions 
surrounding the formative period of the old 
Louisiana Purchase. 

Throughout all the changing scenes of our 
early Western history one figure remains con- 
stant — the American regular soldier, whose 
close relation to Louisiana began with the expe- 
dition of Lewis and Clark. From that time to 
the last of our Indian campaigns, the unfortu- 
nate trouble with the Sioux at Wounded Knee 
in 1890, the soldier has done heroic work in the 
building and safeguarding of the West. He 
has watched over wagon trains and railroad 
builders, protected settlers, and faced every 
form of danger, under the burning sun of Texas 
deserts and the icy skies of mountain winters, 
for the preservation of order, law, and life. 



A FOKMATIVE PEKIOD 247 

The military history opened by Lewis and 
Clark was continuous. St. Louis was an early 
headquarters. There was an attempt to send 
troops up the Missouri in 1819. Fort Leav- 
enworth w^as made a military post in 1832, 
and as the overland travel grew, a line of 
forts was established which began with Fort 
Kearny at Grand Island on the Platte, three 
hundred miles northwest of Fort Leavenworth, 
and was continued with Fort Laramie in Wyo- 
ming, Fort Bridger and Fort Hall in Idaho, 
— the latter at the entrance to the Oreo^on 
country, — and other forts. Out of this line 
of posts grew the system of old forts, each 
with a moving history, that formerly dotted 
the entire West. 

The English soldier has received a meed of 
recognition for his deeds which to the Ameri- 
can regular is practically unknown. From 
the time of the American Revolution a repub- 
lic's jealousy of a professional soldiery has 
inured to the disadvantage of the gallant men 
who have had so large a part in the westward 
advance of the American frontier. What 



248 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

their purely military part has been in this 
work beyond the Missouri can be inferred 
from a few illustrations. A journey of a 
thousand miles from his base of supplies into 
a hostile country was the record of Colonel 
Kearny of the First Dragoons, who on the 
breaking out of the war with Mexico in 1846 
marched from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe 
with seventeen hundred men and seized the 
town. '"A little later he pushed on to Cali- 
fornia with three hundred wilderness-worn 
dragoons in shabby and patched clothing who 
had long been on a short allowance of food." 
After him Colonel St. Geors-e Cooke led the 
half-starved volunteers of the Mormon Bat- 
talion, who after infinite hardships opened a 
wagon road to California. 

The Utah expedition of 1857 from Fort 
Leavenworth against the Mormons proved 
fruitless, but the splendid endurance of starva- 
tion and the rigors of a Rocky Mountain winter 
showed the mettle of the American soldier. 

The Indian wars w^hicli accompanied and 
followed the building of the Union Pacific 



A FORMATIVE PERIOD 249 

and the slaughter of the buffalo furnished 
years of active army life. In 1866 Colonel 
Carrington defied the Sioux and built, in the 
north near the Big Horn Mountains, a new 
fort — Phil. Kearny — an outpost of civiliza- 
tion. His march and the building of the fort 
were accompanied by ceaseless attacks from 
the Sioux. The fort was finished, but it was 
assailed again and again. The massacre of 
Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown, and sixty- 
five men was one of the bloody episodes. 
But the next year Captain James Powell with 
some thirty men repulsed probably three thou- 
sand Indians, who then learned for the first 
time the murderous effect of breech-loading 
rifles. 

In 1868 General G. A. Forsyth held a sand- 
bar on the Republican River in Kansas against 
perhaps one thousand Indians — his command 
numbering originally fifty men. It was not 
until the eighth day that relief came to the 
remnant of this gallant band. Custer's cam- 
paign against Black Kettle in the bitter win- 
ter of 1868, Crook's conquest of the Apaches 



250 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

in 1871 and 1872, the Sioux campaigns of 
1876 and the Custer massacre, the pursuit of 
Chief Joseph and the Nez Perces, covering 
some fourteen hundred miles through Idaho, 
Wyoming, and Montana to Dakota, and the 
Apache campaigns of 1881-1883, are only a 
few examples of the active service of the 
soldier in the West.^ 

Like the soldier, the missionary was an 
early figure in the history of the West. Fray 
Juan de Padilla, who yielded his life on the 
plains of Kansas after Coronado's return, was 
the first of a long line of heroic priests and 
Protestant missionaries who accompanied, or 
followed close behind, the Western pioneers. 
Their first field within the Louisiana Purchase 
lay in the lower country and along the eastern 
borders. A full history of their work, which 
will never be written, would afford many 
inspiring and touching pages. 

Among the Roman Catholic missionaries 
the most conspicuous figure is Father Pierre 

1 " The Story of the Soldier," by (ieneral G. A. Forsytli, 
furnishes a needed picture of the work done in the West. 



A FORMATIVE PEKIOD 251 

Jean de Smet. Between 1820 and 1830 he 
was engaged in mission work in lower Lou- 
isiana. In 1838 he went northward to minis- 
ter to tiie Pottawattomie Indians near Council 
Bluffs, but in 1840 he was sent to the Flathead 
Indians of the Northwest. His life among 
them and his frequent journeys up and down 
the western country have fortunately been 
preserved in his letters, which form a most 
valuable record of his period. 

The early thirties witnessed the beginning 
of the Oregon missions, which were the first 
Protestant efforts in the interior. A Metho- 
dist delegation under Jason and Daniel Lee 
accompanied AYyeth as far as Snake River in 
1834, and continued on alone to found missions 
in Oregon. In 1835 Dr. Marcus Whitman of 
Wheeler, New York, and the Rev. Samuel 
Parker were first sent out by the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
Missions were ultimately established at Waii- 
latpu^ and elsewhere. In the winter of 1843 
Dr. Whitman made a remarkable journey from 

^ Now Walla Walla, Washington. 



252 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



Waiilatpu down the mountains to Taos, New 
Mexico, and thence to St. Louis and eastward. 
This journey has been the subject of an unfor- 
tunately bitter discussion. It has been claimed 






%^tl 




Whitman's Journey to save his Mission 

that Whitman made this journey to present the 
case of Oregon as against the claims of Great 
Britain in the dispute over the northern 
boundary, and that by efforts at Washington 



A FOKMATIVE PERIOD 25o 

and by gathering emigrants he saved Oregon 
to the United States. The whole matter has 
been subjected to close analysis in recent years, 
and it may be accepted that Whitman's journey 
east was primarily for the purpose of preserv- 
ing his mission, which the Board had intended 
to close, and that he exercised no political 
influence. It is obvious, of course, that he 
desired to increase American immigration, but 
his practical results in this direction were lim- 
ited. Of his bravery his journey gave suffi- 
cient proof, and his devotion to his work was 
sealed by his death at the hands of Indians 
in 1847.' 

In view of the adventurous character of 
"Whitman's ride," it is not strange that it 

1 The legend of Whitman as " the savior of Oregon " 
assumed tangible form some years after his death, and 
was first made public by a former colleague in 1864. 
The popularity of the legend may be said to date from 
1882-1883, and particularly from the publication of " Ore- 
gon : The Struggle for Possession," by the Rev. William 
Barrows. In spite of H. H. Bancroft's carefully verified 
narrative of the facts, published about the same time, the 
legend obtained acceptance not only in popular literature 
but also in school histories and encyclopedias. The output 



254 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

became invested with a romantic interest 
which Whitman himself would probably have 
disclaimed in large measure could he have 
lived to see some of the later literature upon 
his journey. 

of books and periodical literature upon the subject has 
developed to surprising proportions and involves a contro- 
versy often acrimonious. Of recent years O. W. Nixon, 
author of " How Marcus Whitman saved Oregon," and 
Dr. W. A. Mowry, author of " Marcus Whitman," have 
been among the leading popular exponents of the legend. 
Fortunately the subject attracted the attention of a trained 
historical student, Professor Edward G. Bourne of Yale, 
who examined the sources and subjected the evidence to a 
critical examination. In an address before the American 
Historical Association in December, 1900, he demonstrated 
the baselessness of the claim that "Whitman saved Oregon." 
Another student of the subject, Mr. W. I. Marshall, added 
some instructive testimony. For a final analysis of the 
subject the reader may consult Professor Bourne's address, 
which appears, revised, enlarged, and annotated, in his 
" Essays in Historical Criticism." An article by Mr. Mar- 
shall in the School Weekly of Chicago, February 22, 1901, 
cites the following authors of school histories as ex- 
pressing themselves convinced of the falsity of the Whit- 
man legend : H. E. Scudder, J. B. McMaster, W. F. Gordy, 
A. F. Blaisdell, and jNIrs. A. H. Burton. He also quotes 
Edward Eggleston and John Fiske as at that time disavow- 
ing belief in the legend, which Fiske had accepted earlier 
from Barrows. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
THE COMING OF INDUSTKIES 

The search for mineral wealth. Louisiana ignored for Cali- 
fornia. Later developments. The day of the "pony- 
express." The great cattle industry. Opening of the 
interior by the first transcontinental railroad. 

The treasure seeking of the Spaniards in 
the Southwest and various quests of the 
French belong to early history, but it was 
less than sixty years ago that Americans 
began to write the story of the mine in the 
West. A few pioneers knew something of 
the mineral riches of the West — trappers, 
scouts, fur hunters like Bridger, Ashley, or 
Peter Ogden famous in the annals of the 
Hudson Bay Company, or, later, William Sub- 
lette, Walker, and Kit Carson. These men 
had penetrated the mountains and kncAv the 
Great Basin. Some of them brought back tales 
of placer gold, and even showed specimens. 

255 



256 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

But it was not until 1848 that the age of 
gold was opened to Anglo-Saxons in the West. 
The digging of a mill race for J. A. Sutter 
at New Helvetia, California, brought the dis- 
covery of gold and the opening of one of the 
most eventful chapters in the record of the 
world's pursuit of mineral wealth. The Argo- 
nauts who crowded vessels bound for the 
Isthmus or the Horn, or painfully traversed 
the well-worn trails ^ from Independence or 
St. Joseph, made a history of their own. The 
number of men in the California gold fields 
rose from a handful at the time of the dis- 
covery to six thousand at the end of 1848, 
and thirty-five thousand by the close of the 
following year. Not until 1855 was a railroad 
opened across the Isthmus of Panama, but in 
the first twelve years of its existence it carried 

^ " Along this line [the overland trail] the ' prairie 
schooners ' stretched for miles. ... A traveler counted 
four hundred and fifty-nine wagons in ten miles along 
the Platte. . . . The cholera epidemic of 1849 carried 
off over five thousand of these immigrants gathered along 
the Missouri." — Sparks's "Expansion of the American 
People." 




Sutter's Mill 



THE COMING OF INDUSTRIES 257 

eastward gold valued at seven hundred and 
fifty million dollars. 

For tliis wonderful tide of overland migra- 
tion the old Louisiana territory was but a 
country to be traversed. Yet the increased 
knowledge of the West had its influence, 
although the gold seekers neglected treasures 
which were developed later. The early fifties 
brouglit some beginnings of placer mining in 
Nevada and Utah, as did also the sudden 
and disastrous excitement over gold at Pike's 
Peak. The later fifties witnessed the dis- 
covery of the stupendous Comstock lode in 
Nevada, which was followed within a few 
years by the disclosure of mineral riches 
hidden within the confines of Louisiana. In 
the early sixties came discoveries of gold 
in Idaho and Montana, and later copper was 
added to swell an output beside which the 
initial cost of Louisiana sinks into insignifi- 
cance, without reckoning the products of Da- 
kota, the zinc and coal of Missouri, or the 
other mineral resources of a land crossed by 
the Argonauts with eyes open only to the 



258 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



gold of the Pacific coast. The first placers 
of Colorado were followed by the long list of 
discoveries which have given such names as 




Indians attacking the "Overland Mail" 

Leadville, Cripple Creek, and Creede a fairly 
historic character. 

In 1803 a month and a half was required 
for the transit of letters from the eastern 



THE COMING OF INDUSTRIES 259 

seaboard to St. Louis. Half a century later 
the best time for government dispatches from 
the eastern border of the old Louisiana terri- 
tory to California was three weeks. In 1859 
St. Joseph, Missouri, was the most western rail- 
road point, two thousand miles from California. 
There were only wagon trains and stages over 
thirteen hundred miles of trail to the moun- 
tains and seven hundred miles of mountain 
roads. The plains were held by hostile In- 
dians. For those who shrank from the pri- 
vations and dangers of the overland trail there 
was left a choice between the Isthmus route 
and passage around Cape Horn. The need of 
quicker communication with California, which 
had been felt since the migration of gold 
seekers began, was made more imperative by 
political conditions. Out of this need grew 
the " pony express." ^ 

* " Of all the expresses, the most romantic and pictur- 
esque was the pony express, inaugurated by William H. 
Russell and B. F. Ficklin in 1860, absorbed later by Wells, 
Fargo & Co., and abandoned in 1862, when the telegraph 
line was completed across the continent." — "The Story of 
the Railroad," by Cy Warman. 



260 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

At the outset, as at the outset of most new 
departures, the idea was ridiculed. It was 
deemed impossible that a successful mail serv- 
ice could be maintained by relays of single 
riders over two thousand miles of practically 
hostile country. But the government and 




A "Pony Express" Rider 

business men assured the organizers of patron- 
age. Some six hundred bronchos were pur- 
chased. A corps of seventy-five light-weight 
riders was enrolled, and relay stations were 
established at intervals of a hundred miles on 
the plains and forty miles in the mountains, 
each station equipped with a few men, several 



THE COMING OF INDU8TK1ES 261 

horses, and a generous supply of arms and 
ammunition. 

At noon of April 3, 1860, came the open- 
ing of the "pony express" route, which was 
awaited on the Pacific coast with an interest 
second only to that caused by the driving of 
the spike which a few years later joined the 
Union and Central Pacific railroads at Promon- 
tory Point, Nevada. The pioneer rider started 
westward from St. Joseph, Missouri, followed 
by music and cheers, carrying a message from 
President Buchanan to the governor of Cali- 
fornia, with bank drafts, letters, and papers. 
The rider's distance was a hundred miles, 
and then his mail bag was carried on by his 
waiting relief. 

vSo the mail sped on, across plains and alkali 
deserts, through canons and over mountain 
passes, through the lands of a dozen hostile 
tribes, until ten days later the last rider 
reached Sacramento and the President's mes- 
sage was telegraphed to San Francisco. On 
April 3 also a rider started east from Sacra- 
mento with the first express pouch for the 



262 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

East, which went through to St. Joseph in 
eleven and a half days. This was the begin- 
ning of the "pony express." ^ Every week day 
riders left St. Joseph and Sacramento. The 
charge for letters was five dollars an ounce, 
and later bonuses were paid for war news. 
The fastest time was in December, 1860, when 
President Buchanan's message reached Sacra- 
mento in eight and a half days from Wash- 
ington. The news of the attack on Fort 
Sumter came through in eight days and four- 
teen hours — two thousand miles. On the 
western part of the route five riders were 
killed by Indians, two were frozen to death, 
and several were shot on the plains. One 
man, finding the Indians had killed every one 
at the relay station, rode two hundred and 
eighty-four miles without rest, averaging six- 
teen miles an hour. Another covered two 
hundred and eighteen miles with six horses, 
one of which carried him seventy miles at 

^ " The Great Salt Lake Trail," by Colonel Henry Tnman, 
and Mark Twain's " Roughing- Tt," afford some picturesque 
sketches of the " pony express." 



THE COMING OF INDUSTRIES 263 

high, speed. The " pony express " lived a 
life brief but crowded with thrilling episodes. 
It was ended in 18G2, when the first telegraph 
line was built across the plains. 

From the time of the '^ hunchbacked cows " 
of Cabeza de Vaca to the decade following 
the completion of the first transcontinental 
railroad, every traveler through the plains 
of Louisiana territory was impressed first by 
their extent, and next by the vast herds of 
buffalo. Then, they seemed countless. Now, 
the census of the handful preserved in the 
Yellowstone National Park and in private 
keeping can be taken all too readily. They 
were the mainstay of the flesh-eating In- 
dians of the plains ; but the slaughter by the 
Indians, barbarous as it was, counted as noth- 
ing beside that of the white hide-hunters and 
other merciless slayers — sometimes miscalled 
sportsmen. The completion of the Union 
Pacific Railroad divided the buffalo into the 
northern and southern herds, and ease of 
transit for hunters and the increasing pres- 
sure of newcomers hastened the work of 



264 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

extermination. The story of the buffalo forms 
a page melancholy but inevitable in the history 
of the West. 

But the buffalo had their successors. The 
descendants of the Spaniards in Mexico owned 
cattle by the tens of thousands. Their cattle 
entered Texas, — sometimes by fair means, 
sometimes by foul, — and it was found that these 
sharp-horned, thin-limbed, muscular creatures 
throve on the buffalo grass of northern Texas. 
Seeing this, and eager for a market which did 
not exist in the distant Southwest, the owners 
drove the cattle northward. Even before the 
Civil War, Texas cattle were driven to Illinois. 
Soon after the war, experiments were made in 
driving cattle to Nevada, and even California 
was attempted. But the great route finally 
clearly marked out was almost directly north. 
It was found that the cattle gained weight 
in northern latitudes, and they were also 
brought nearer to a market. The opening 
of the first transcontinental road was an 
important factor. Thus the "Long Trail" 
was developed, as distinctive in its way as the 



THE COMING OF INDUSTEIES 265 

trails worn by the pioneers, gold seekers, and 
emigrants.^ In 1871, over six hundred thou- 
sand cattle were driven across the Red River 
toward the north. Out of all this grew the 
era of the cowboy and his reign from Texas to 
Montana. The cattle towns where he held his 
court when free from the labors of the drive 
or range afforded another distinctive page in 
the history of the West. But at length there 
came the invasion of settlers and farmers, the 
private ownership of land and water rights, 
and the opposition of barbed-wire fences. The 
"Long Trail" was ended, and the cowboy^ of 

^ " The braiding of a hundred minor pathways, the Long 
Trail lay like a vast rope connecting the cattle country of 
the South with that of the North. Lying loose or coiling, 
it ran for more than two thousand miles. ... It traversed 
in a fair line the vast land of Texas, curled over the Indian 
Nations, over Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, 
and bent in wide overlapping circles as far west as Utah 
and Nevada ; as far east as Missouri, Iowa and Illinois, and 
as far north as the British possessions." — Emerson Hough, 
in "The Story of the Cowboy." 

2 " There, jaunty, erect, was the virile figure of a mounted 
man. He stood straight in the stirrups of his heavy saddle, 
but lightly and well poised, A coil of rope hung at his 
saddle bow. A loose belt swung a revolver low down upon 



266 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

the days of wild herding has nearly passed 
away or is transformed into the milder herds- 
man of a more closely regulated industry. 

The great trails of the West were worn by 
the feet of countless thousands for decades be- 
fore the dream of a transcontinental railroad 
took practical shape. But the idea^ found 

his hip. A wide hat blew up and back a bit with the air 
of his traveling, and a deep kerchief fluttered at his neck. 
His arm, held lax and high, offered support to the slack 
reins so little needed in his riding. The small and sinewy 
steed beneath him was alert and vigorous as he. It was a 
figure vivid, keen, remarkable. . . . 

" The story of the West is a story of the time of heroes. 
Of all those who appear large upon the fading page of that 
day, none may claim greater stature than the chief figure 
of the cattle range. Cowboy, cattle man, cow-puncher, it 
matters not what name others have given him, he has 
remained — himself. From the half-tropic to the half- 
arctic country he has ridden, his type, his costume, his 
characteristics practically unchanged, one of the most dom- 
inant and self-sufficient figures in the history of the land. 
He never dreamed he was a hero, therefore perhaps he was 
one. He would scoff at monument or record, therefore 
perliaps he deserves them." — " The Story of the Cowboy." 

1 Mr. J. P. Davis, in " The Union Pacific Railway," 
mentions an editorial in J'he Emigrant, a paper published 
in Ann Arbor, INIichigan, as the first public expression of 
the idea. But this was not until 1832. Various other 



THE COMING OF INDUSTRIES 267 

vague expression as early as 1819, when Robert 
Mills, in his book on the internal improvements 
of Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, 
argued for the connection of the Atlantic and 
Pacific by a steam road '^ from the head navi- 
gable waters of the noble rivers disemboguing 
into each ocean." Mills's plan, however, as 
shown by his memorial to Congress in 1845, 
was for a road for steam carriages rather than 
for a railway/ 

Of all the early advocates of a transcon- 
tinental railway the most enthusiastic and 
persistent was Asa Whitney, a New York 
merchant, whose life from 1840 to 1850, and 
much of his later time, was spent in urging 
upon Congress, upon capitalists, and the pub- 
lic, the necessity for surveys and the bene- 
fits to be derived from a railroad across the 
continent. But any practical result from the 

claims are recorded, including Senator Thomas II. Benton's 
declaration at St. Louis in 1844 that men full grown at 
the time would live to see Asiatic commerce crossing the 
Rocky Mountains by rail. 

^ Perhaps the reign of the automobile will yet show INIills 
a true prophet, though far in advance of his time. 



268 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

surveys undertaken in the fifties was delayed 
by the Civil War and by the hesitation of 
private capitalists, and yet the war itself made 
plain the need of a railroad to the western 
coast. It was not until 1864, after the govern- 
ment had doubled its land grant and increased 
its inducements, that ground was broken at 
Omaha for the first transcontinental railroad. 
In 1869 the Union Pacific advancing from the 
East met the Central Pacific coming from the 
West, and the last spike was driven at Promon- 
tory Point in Utah, completing the first iron 
highway across the continent. 

The Union Pacific presented some typical 
features which have never been surpassed.^ 
In the abundance of Indians and buffalo on 
the plains, and of the thugs and thieves 
who invested Julesburg, Cheyenne, and other 
points with an evil reputation, the building 

1 Some features of this life are sketched in " The Story 
of the Raih'oad." " The Union Pacific Railroad,"' by John 
P. Davis, and Mr. E. V. Smalley's " History of the Northern 
Pacific Railroad," are useful for reference. A comparison 
of a map of the old trails and a recent map of the numerous 
transcontinental lines tells an interesting story. 




Completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad 
(Redrawn from a photograph) 



THE COMING OF INDUSTRIES 269 

of the Union Pacific held a certain preemi- 
nence. With this road began the work of the 
railroad surveyor and engineer in the true 
West, with its perils of all kinds on the plains 
and in the mountains, which forms in itself 
one of the epics of Western history.^ 

^ Of this wonderful work of construction, Robert Louis 
Stevenson, in "Across the Plains," has given a vivid picture : 
" When I think how the railroad has been pushed through 
this watered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes ; how, 
at each stage of the construction, roaring, impromptu cities 
full of gold and lust and death sprang up and then died 
away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert ; 
how in these uncouth places pigtailed pirates worked side 
by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, 
talking together in a mixed dialect, — mostly oaths, — gam- 
bling, drinking, quarreling, and murdering like wolves ; how 
the plumed hereditary lord of all America heard in this last 
fastness the scream of the ' Bad Medicine Wagon ' chariot- 
ing his foes ; and then when I go on to remember that all 
this epical turmoil was conducted by gentlemen in frock 
coats, and with a view to nothing more extraordinary than 
a fortune and a subsequent visit to Paris, it seems to me, T 
own, as if this railway were the one typical achievement of 
the age in which we live ; as if it brought together into one 
plot all the ends of the world and all the degrees of social 
rank, and offered the busiest, the most extended, and the 
most varying subject for an enduring literary work. If it 
be romance, if it be heroism that we require, what was Troy 
town to this V " 



CHAPTER XXY 
PERMANENT OCCUPATION 

The Free Soil issue. Kansas and Nebraska. Distribution of 
public lands. Louisiana in the Civil War. A glance at 
later development. Political and economic consequence 
of the old Louisiana Purchase. 

The purchase of Louisiana was opposed by 
the New Eng^land Federalists. Half a cen- 
tury later their descendants were laboring to 
secure a result w^iich would mean a political 
alliance with upper Louisiana. In the long 
struggle between the slaveholding a-nd the free 
states the part of the Louisiana territory was 
one of supreme consequence. 

By the act known as the Missouri Compro- 
mise, passed in 1820, Missouri was admitted 
into the Union as a slave state, but it was pro- 
vided that there was to be no slavery in any 
portion of the Louisiana territory north of lati- 
tude 36° 30' except in the state of Missouri. 

270 



PERMANENT OCCUPATION 271 

But by the middle of the century the westward 
movement of settlement reopened an issue 
which for a time had remained comparatively 
quiescent. In 1853, under the administration 
of President Pierce, it became clear that a new 
territory should be organized west of Iowa 
and Missouri, which would be within the Pur- 
chase. The North had believed the question 
of the extension of slavery into the Pur- 
chase settled by the Missouri Compromise. 
The South Avas fresh from the defeat of the 
^'Wilmot Proviso," a bill forbidding slavery 
within the territory acquired from Mexico, 
and the representatives of the South were 
stimulated by the profits of slave labor on 
new land.^ They were unwilling to see slave 
labor definitely excluded, but it was a senator 
from Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas, who intro- 
duced a bill providing for the admission of 
two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, and 

^ The influence of the cotton gin in cheapening produc- 
tion and the large returns from cotton raising by slave 
labor were obviously important political factors throughout 
this long struggle, and yet in the long run slavery was more 
expensive than freedom — a fact generally conceded now. 



272 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

repealing the restriction upon slavery con- 
tained in the Missouri Compromise. Douglas 
argued that the Compromise had been super- 
seded by the legislation of 1850, passed prima- 
rily with reference to the territory acquired 
from Texas, which declared a policy of '^ non- 
intervention " ; that is, that new territories 
should be admitted without any regulation 
regarding slavery. In other words, they were 
to decide the question for themselves ; and this 
idea, which was termed ^'popular " — and later 
"squatter" — "sovereignty," was embodied in 
the Kansas-Nebraska Act of May, 1854. 

Out of this sprang a bitter struggle for con- 
trol. It was a question on either side of the 
greater number of settlers. In Massachusetts, 
where men were not content with protests, 
there was organized an Emigrant Aid Society, 
and there were similar leaorues in other north- 
ern states. The antislavery men strained 
every nerve to send settlers of their own 
party to Kansas, and with the coming of 
open strife the shipment of Bibles and rifles 
became a watchword of the times. Proslavery 



PEEMANENT OCCUPATION 273 

emigrants were sent from the South, and the 
Southern cause was aided from Missouri. The 
first election in 1854 was gained by the pro- 
slavery men. There followed the period of 
anarchy and civil war which made the name 
of " Bleeding Kansas " known throughout the 
land. But by 1858 the free-state men were 
in control, although Southern influence in 
Congress made it impossible for a time to 
gain admission as a state with a constitution 
forbidding slavery.^ Nebraska, lying farther 
removed from the slave states, and rendered 
less important for a time by the preoccu- 
pation of settlers with the territory to her 
east, escaped the battle for free soil in upper 
Louisiana of which Kansas bore the shock. 

This was but one of a series of events which 
stimulated the occupation of upper Louisiana. 
The California gold seekers, and others who 

^ It is unnecessary to give references to the voluminous 
literature of the slavery question which is readily accessi- 
ble. For the part which concerns this history, however, 
the reader will find it useful to consult "Kansas," by 
Leverett W. Spring, a volume in the American Common- 
wealth Series. 



274 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

rushed to Pike's Peak in the fifties to find dis- 
aster instead of treasure, had passed by farming 
lands wliich were to enrich future owners by 
producing the food of America and of foreign 
lands. With convalescence from the Cahfor- 
nia gold fever came appreciation of the farming 
lands of the middle West. While the battle 
for Kansas was in progress, a tide of immigra- 
tion was sweeping into Iowa, which was pres- 
ently felt in Nebraska and in Kansas as well. 
A telegraph line was built at Leavenworth in 
1858, and two years more brought the opening 
of the first railroad in Kansas. To the north 
the development of Minnesota brought about 
her admission as a state in 1858. On the east- 
ward, at least, upper Louisiana was developing 
its definite and permanent organization. 

The vital importance of control of the Mis- 
sissippi, which the history of the Louisiana 
Purchase illustrates so constantly, was shown 
again in the Civil War. Of the states formed 
within the Louisiana Purchase, Louisiana and 
Arkansas seceded from the Union. Missouri 
for a time seemed doubtful. Her decision 



PERMANENT OCCUPATION 275 

influenced large issues not only from the size 
of tlie state and its position on the border, but 
also from Missouri's control of the Mississippi. 
Captain Lyon's seizure of Camp Jackson at St. 
Louis in 1861 represented an initiative action 
against secession which exerted an immediate 
effect. This was the first step in a struggle 
for Missouri which resulted in securing this 
strategical vantage point for the Union. It 
was in this struggle that Fremont, the " Path- 
finder," proved himself more resolute as an 
explorer than as a soldier. After the earlier 
border warfare in Missouri and Kentucky came 
the great campaigns for control of the Missis- 
sippi and its tributaries, including Farragut's 
capture of New Orleans and a wonderful chap- 
ter of military and naval operations on the 
Mississippi and its tributaries. All this culmi- 
nated in the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant 
on July 4, 1863, an event which ranks with 
Gettysburg as a turning point in the devel- 
opment of the war. The "great river" was 
returned to the control of the Federal gov- 
ernment. The Confederacy was divided and 



276 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

its left flank turned. In President Lincoln's 
words, " the Father of Waters rolled unvexed 
to the sea." ^ 

If the Civil War checked the process of per- 
manent organization for a time, yet its close 
and the release of great armies of men to peace- 
ful labors quickened immeasurably the devel- 
opment of the West. North and South met 
within the confines of upper Louisiana. Less 
picturesque than this reunion of veterans on the 
prairies but of large practical consequence was 
the increase of immigration from Europe which 
followed the ending of the war. To all pos- 
sible settlers there were held out the tempting 
inducements offered by readily acquired land. 

The history of negotiations with the origi- 
nal occupants of Louisiana, the Indians,^ and 

^ This mere suggestion of the political and military eon- 
sequence of the Mississippi in the Civil War, which is all that 
is possible in this history, may very well turn the attention 
of readers to " The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War," by 
John Fiske. Snead's " The Fight for Missouri " is, of course, 
more local in its interest. 

^ One view of our treatment of the Indians is presented 
in Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson's " A Century of Dishonor." 
A comparatively brief study, largely from an ethnological 



PERMANENT OCCUPATION 277 

their subsequent treatment, is too often a his- 
tory of mistakes and worse. A peculiarly 
difficult question was presented by the char- 
acter of the buffalo-hunting Indians of the 
plains, who included Comanches and Lipans 
in Texas and Indian Temtory, and Pawnees, 
Kiowas, Cheyennes, and the great Sioux tribe 
on the north. There were the Blackfeet and 
Crows west of the Sioux, and in Colorado 
were the Utes. These were the chief tribes 
of many with whom the government made 
treaties for the alienation of the lands which 
they had occupied, and for their retirement to 
reservations, in order that the wild country 
might be opened to settlement. 

Whether or not the paternalism of the 
government was wise in its disposition of the 
public lands, its course stimulated the devel- 
opment of the Louisiana Purchase. By the 

point of view, is afforded in the late Major J. W. Powell's 
discussion of the subject contained in " The United States 
of America," edited by Professor N. S. Shaler. For an 
understanding of the Indian on the personal side, there is 
no better popular work than " The Story of the Indian " 
by Mr. George Bird Grinnell. 



278 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Preemption Act of 1841 any genuine settler 
could take up one hundred and sixty acres of 
public land and make his payments, on long 
time and easy terms, at a rate fixed in 1862 at 
one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. The 
railroad land-grant system had its origin in 
1835. The transcontinental roads received vast 
tracts of land along their lines. Over one hun- 
dred and fifty million acres were given to rail- 
roads between 1850 and 1870. The Union and 
the Central Pacific received twenty-five million 
acres, the Northern Pacific forty-seven million, 
and other roads obtained large amounts. So 
far as the government is concerned, the public 
domain has represented a loss ; as regards the 
quickening of settlement and development 
and actual benefit to settlers, this disposition 
of public lands, with all its faults and flagrant 
abuses, has had certain practical advantages.^ 

^ Donaldson's " Public Domain " may be consulted. 
There is a considerable literature dealing with the public 
lands, which has been increased of late years by such events 
as the opening of Oklahoma and Indian Territory, and the 
increased interest in national parks and forest preserves in 
the West. 



PEKMANENT OCCUPATION 279 

In the case of the first transcontinental lines 
the railroad was pushed ahead of settlement. 
It was not a case of a demand for a railroad 
business due to increasing population, but an 
advance across long stretches of unoccupied 
country. Under ordinary circumstances it 
would have been wiser to advance the road 
step by step with the advance of population 
and of business ; but in the case of the Union 
Pacific there was a necessity for a complete 
overland route. The Atchison, Topeka, and 
Santa Fe aimed at the minino; business of 
Colorado, and, when checked at the Royal 
Gorge after an actual war with the Denver 
and Rio Grande, it turned southward through 
New Mexico, seeking a slowly realized outlet 
to the Pacific. The Northern Pacific, after 
a long and eventful struggle, was pushed 
through to Oregon in 1883, although at its 
opening it ran through long stretches of 
unoccupied country. For many of the trans- 
continental roads, granting the desirability of 
building them when they were built, the 
paternalism involved in land grants was a 



280 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

necessity. But there are features of this 
railroad building and of the government's 
distribution of the public domain which are 
creditable to neither side. All that can be 
said is, that, in spite of dishonesty, blundering, 
and waste, certain practical benefits have been 
realized and the settlement of the country has 
been accelerated. The part which the steam- 
boat bore in opening and enriching the central 
valley of the West has been surpassed by the 
influence of the railroad in the development 
of the interior of the Louisiana Purchase — a 
development which without the railroad w^ould 
have been impossible. 

As to the later and comparatively recent 
history of the states formed within the Loui- 
siana Purchase, the statistics provided in an 
appendix speak with a certain eloquence of 
their own. This narrative aims only to pre- 
sent a story of purchase and exploration, and 
the earlier phases of a domain less obviously 
a unit than the '^ Old Northwest" but pecul- 
iarly impressive and pictm^esque. 



PEKMA^EXT OCCUPATION 281 

The historv' of Louisiana is crowded with 
possibilities fateful for the United States. In 
the strucrale over the treaty of 1783, in which 
Spain and France were concerned as well as 
England, the United States refused to be con- 
fined to the eastern seaboard and secured an 
expansion to the Mississippi. Had the pro- 
posed restriction been enforced, it has been 
argued that a foreign power holding the whole 
middle West micrht have strencrthened itself 
and alienated the American pioneers already 
beyond the Alleghenies. and have established 
a great colonial empire like that cherished 
by Talleyrand in his dreams. In the critical 
period of Louisiana after the Revolution 
there were possibilities of war with Spain and 
France and entanorlements with Entrland. It 
is profitless, perhaps, to consider past possi- 
biUties, and yet their consideration helps to 
measure the real sig:nificance of history. 

The purchase closed a long contest for 
ascendency in the valley of the Mississippi. 
With the purchase the balance of power in 
the Western Hemisphere began to incline 



282 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

toward the United States. The acquisitions of 
Florida, Texas, California, Porto Rico and the 
Philippines, and presumably Hawaii as well, 
are termed by Professor F. J. Turner the corol- 
laries of the Louisiana Purchase. " The Monroe 
Doctrine," to quote his w^ords, " would not have 
been possible except for the Louisiana Pur- 
chase. It was the logical outcome of that acqui- 
sition. Having taken her decisive stride across 
the Mississippi, the United States enlarged the 
horizon of her views and marched steadily for- 
ward to the possession of the Pacific Ocean. 
From this event dates the rise of the United 
States into the position of a world power." ^ 

On the economic side the acquisition of Lou- 
isiana meant first the ownership of a great 
system of water ways, whose control furnished 

^ Professor Turner's idea has an eloquence of its own, 
but with all deference to one whom every student of Ameri- 
can history holds in high respect, it might be argued that 
there is a distinction between contiguous and practically 
inseparable Louisiana and the distant Philippines. A full 
recognition of the United States as a world power was 
apparently not brought home to European diplomats until 
the Spanish war. 



PERMANENT OCCUPATION 283 

the key that opened the interior of this conti- 
nent. What that transportation was to the 
pioneer settlers west of the Alleghenies, to 
the fur traders of the interior, to the mer- 
chants of New Orleans and St. Louis, and to 
the development of the upper country, has been 
suggested in the course of this narrative. 

The mineral resources of the purchase, ran- 
ging from the coal and iron of Missouri to the 
gold of Idaho, are indicated by statistics given 
elsewhere. It was the irony of fate that the 
Spaniards, whose keen scent for treasure was 
so richly rewarded in Peru, in Mexico, and 
even within our own borders, should have left 
Colorado practically unexploited and Montana 
unexplored. 

An even more important part which Louisi- 
ana has assumed is that of the granary of the 
world. ^ The phrase is large but not uncalled 

^ Kansas leads the wheat-growing states with an acreage 
increased in forty years from 185,379 acres to 5,.355,638. 
The production amounted to 82,488,655 bushels in 1900, 
while the second state, Minnesota, raised 51,509,252. In 
1901 Kansas surpassed her own record with a yield of 
99,079,304 bushels. 



284 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

for. The vaguely described "American desert " 
of the middle of the nineteenth century has 
shrunk into narrower limits year by year with 
the pressure of settlement. The tilling of 
new lands has been accompanied by a pal- 
pable increase in rainfall, and the influence of 
irrigation, yet in an imperfect stage, has gained 
more and more land from a desert which is no 
longer feared. The present consequence of the 
wheat and corn of the Louisiana Purchase can- 
not be easily exaggerated. These cereals repre- 
sent a question not only of food but of finance. 
Their success or failure is vital to great rail- 
roads and steamship companies, and influences 
the stock markets of the world. In other 
days cotton ruled as king, but the scepter has 
passed to the grain of the Louisiana Purchase. 
Out of the productiveness of the Louisiana 
Purchase has grown an independence of mind 
as of estate. The lean years of subservience 
to Eastern capital have passed. The crum- 
bling stock markets of 1903 found the West at 
first comparatively unconcerned, save for the 
effect upon the market for wheat, and occupied 



PERMANENT OCCUPATION 285 

with its crops, its irrigation companies, and 
its development of local industries fostered by 
the money of its own people. The meeting 
of the Irrigation Congress, the influence of 
the Interstate Mississippi Improvement and 
Levee Association, the ways of expending 
national funds in the irrigation of desert 
lands, the possibilities of shipping southward 
by the Mississippi instead of eastward, and 
a thousand practical domestic subjects have 
maintained their interest in spite of Eastern 
absorption in the stock market. Years of bad 
crops may lie in the future, but the centennial 
year of the Louisiana Purchase has brought 
the development of an independence which 
can never wholly disappear. 

Of greater consequence than richness of 
production is the effect of any great national 
undertaking upon the character of a people. 
In the acquisition of the vast phiins, great 
rivers, and lofty mountains of Louisiana, there 
lay an influence more subtle than that of 
mere space and size. It was an expansion of 
our country which meant a larger character 



286 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

and broader outlook for its men. Whatever 
vagaries may have harbored temporarily in 
Louisiana in the past, its influence has sup- 
plied a manhood and a love of soil and 
country which crown the long, strange his- 
tory woven through the centuries since the 
first coming of the Spaniard. 



APPENDIX I 

Treaty of Purchase between the United States and the 
French Jiepuhlic ^ 

The President of the United States of America, and 
the First Consul of the French Republic, in the name 
of the French people, desiring to remove all sources 
of misunderstanding relative to objects of discussion 
mentioned in the second and fifth articles of the Con- 
vention of (the 8th Vendemiaire, an 9,) September 30, 
1800, relative to the rights claimed by the United 
States, in virtue of the Treaty concluded at Madrid, 
the 27th October, 1795, between His Catholic Majesty 
and the said United States, and willing to strengthen 
the union and friendship, which at the time of the said 
Convention was happily re-established between the 
two nations, have respectively named their Plenii)o- 
tentiaries, to wit : The President of the United States 
of America, by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate of the said States, E-obert R. Livingston, Min- 
ister Plenipotentiary of the United States, and James 
Monroe, Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraor- 
dinary of the said States, near the Government of 

1 This treaty, which has been often reprinted, was officially 
published in the annals of Congress, 1802-1803, pp. 1000-1008, 
which give an official current history of the negotiations. 

287 



288 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

the French Kepublic ; and the First Consul, in the 
name of the French people, the French citizen Barbe 
Marbois, Minister of the Public Treasury, who, after 
having respectively exchanged their full powers, have 
agreed to the following articles : 

Art. 1. Whereas, by the article the third of the 
Treaty concluded at St. Ildefonso, (the 9th Vende- 
miaire, an 9,) October 1, 1800, between the First 
Consul of the French Eepublic and His Catholic 
Majesty, it was agreed as follows : His Catholic 
Majesty promises and engages on his part to cede to 
the French Kepublic, six months after the full and 
entire execution of the conditions and stipulations 
herein, relative to his Royal Highness the Duke of 
Parma, the Colony or Province of Louisiana, with the 
same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, 
and that it had when France possessed it ; and such 
as it should be after the treaties subsequently 
entered into between Spain and other States : And 
whereas, in pursuance of the Treaty, particularly of 
the third article, the French Republic has an incon- 
testable title to the domain and to the possession of 
the said territory, the First Consul of the French Re- 
public, desiring to give to the United States a strong 
proof of friendship, doth hereby cede to the said 
United States, in the name of the French Republic, 
for ever and in full sovereignty, the said territory, 
with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully and in 
the same manner as they might have been acquired 
by the French Republic, in value of the above-men- 
tioned treaty, concluded with His Catholic Majesty. 



APPENDIX I 289 

Art. 2, In the cession made by the preceding 
article, are included the adjacent islands belonging 
to Louisiana, all public lots and squares, vacant lands, 
and all public buildings, fortifications, barracks, and 
other edifices, which are not private property. The 
archives, papers, and documents, relative to the domain 
and sovereignty of Louisiana and its dependencies, 
will be left in the possession of the Commissaries of 
the United States, and copies will be afterwards 
given in due form to the magistrates and municipal 
officers, of such of the said papers and documents as 
may be necessary to them. 

Art. 3. The inhabitants of the ceded territory 
shall be incorporated in the Union of tlie United 
States, and admitted as soon as possible, according 
to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the 
enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immu- 
nities, of citizens of the United States ; and, in the 
mean time, they shall be maintained and protected 
in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and 
the religion which they profess. 

Art. 4. There shall be sent by the Government of 
France a Commissary to Louisiana, to the end that 
he do every act necessary, as well to receive from 
the officers of His Catholic Majesty the said country 
and its dependencies in the name of the French 
Republic, if it has not been already done, as to 
transmit it, in the name of the French Republic, to 
the Commissary or agent of the United States. 

Art. 5. Immediately after the ratification of the 
present treaty by the President of the United States, 



290 LOUISIANA rUECllASE 

and in oase that of the First Consul shall have been 
previously obtained, the Comniissary of the French 
Republic shall remit all the military posts of Xew 
Orleans, and other parts of the ceded territory, to the 
Commissary or Commissaries named by the President 
to take possession ; the troops, whether of France or 
Spain, who may be there, shall cease to occupy any 
military post from the time of taking possession, and 
shall be embarked as soon as possible in the course of 
three months after tlie^ ratification of this treaty. 

Art. G. The United States promise to execute 
such treaties and articles as may have been agreed 
between Spain and the tribes and nations of Indians, 
until, by mutual consent of the United States and 
the said tribes or nations, other suitable articles shall 
have been agreed upon. 

Art. 7. As it is reciprocally advantageous to 
the commerce of France and the United States, to 
encourage the communication of both nations, for 
a limited time, in tlie country ceded by the present 
treaty, until general arrangements relative to the 
commerce of both nations may be agreed on, it has 
been agreed between the contracting parties, that the 
French ships coming directly from France or any of 
her Colonies, loaded only with the produce or manu- 
factures of France or lier said Colonies, and the ships 
of Spain coming directly from Spain or any of her 
Colonies, loaded only with the produce or manu- 
factures of Spain or her Colonies, shall be admitted 
during the space of twelve years in the port of New 



APPENDIX 1 291 

Orleans, and in all other legal ports of entry within 
the ceded territory, in the same manner as the ships 
of the United States coming directly from France or 
Spain, or any of their Colonies, without being subject 
to any other or greater duty on the merchandise, or 
other or greater tonnage than those paid by the citi- 
zens of the United States. 

During the space of time above-mentioned, no other 
nation shall have a right to the same privileges in 
the ports of the ceded territory. The twelve years 
shall commence three montlis after the exchange of 
ratifications, if it shall take place in France, or three 
months after it shall have been notified at Paris to 
the French Government, if it shall take place in the 
United States ; it is, however, well understood, that 
the object of the above article is to favor the manu- 
factures, commerce, freight, and navigation of France 
and Spain, so far as relates to the importations that 
the French and Spanish shall make into the said 
ports of the United States, without in any sort affect- 
ing the regulations that the United States may make 
concerning the exportation of the produce and mer- 
chandise of the United States, or any right they may 
have to make such regulations. 

Art. 8. In future and forever, after the expiration 
of the twelve years, the ships of France shall be 
treated upon the footing of the most favored nations 
in the ports above-mentioned. 

Art. 9. The particular convention signed this day 
by the respective IMinisters, having for its object to 



292 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

provide the payment of debts due to the citizens of 
the United States by the French Republic, prior to 
tha 30th of September, 1800, (8th Vendemiaire, an 
9,) is approved, and to have its execution in the 
same manner as if it had been inserted in the present 
treaty ; and it shall be ratified in the same form and 
in the same time, so that the one shall not be ratified 
distinct from the other. Another particular conven- 
tion, signed at the same date as the present treaty, 
relative to a definitive rule between the contracting 
parties is, in the like manner, approved, and will be 
ratified in the same form and in the same time, and 
jointly. 

Art. 10. The present treaty shall be ratified in 
good and due form, and the ratification shall be 
exchanged in the space of six months after the date 
of the signature by the Ministers Plenipotentiary, or 
sooner if possible. 

In faith whereof, the respective Plenipotentiaries 
have signed these articles in the French and English 
languages, declaring, nevertheless, that the present 
treaty was originally agreed to in the French lan- 
guage, and have thereunto put their seals. 

Done at Paris, the 10th day of Floreal, in the 11th 
year of the French Republic, and the 30th April, 
1803. 

R. R. Livingston, 
James Monroe, 
Barbe Marbois. 



APPENDIX I 293 

A Convention between the United States of America 
and the French Republic 

The President of the United States of America, 
and the First Consul of the French Eepublic, in the 
name of the French people, in consequence of the 
Treaty of Cession of Louisiana, which has been 
signed this day, wishing to regulate definitively 
everything which has relation to the said cession, 
have authorized, to this effect, the Plenipotentiaries, 
that is to say : the President of the United States 
has, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate 
of the said States, nominated for their Plenipoten- 
tiaries, Robert K. Livingston, Minister Plenipotentiary 
of the United States, and James Monroe, Minister 
Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of the said 
United States, near the Government of the French 
Republic ; and the First Consul of the French Repub- 
lic, in the name of the French people, has named, as 
Plenipotentiary of the said Republic, the French citi- 
zen Barbe Marbois, who, in virtue of their full powers, 
which have been exchanged this day, have agreed to 
the following articles : 

Art. 1. The Government of the United States 
engages to pay to the French Government, in the 
manner specified in the following articles, the sum 
of sixty millions of francs, independent of the sum 
which shall be fixed by any other convention for the 
payment of the debts due by France to citizens of 
the United States. 



294 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Art. 2. For the payment of the sum of sixty mil- 
lions of francs, mentioned in the preceding article, 
the United States shall create a stock of eleven 
million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, bear- 
ing an interest of six per cent, per annum, payable 
half-yearly, in London, Amsterdam, or Paris, amount- 
ing, by the half-year to three hundred and thirty- 
seven thousand five hundred dollars, according to the 
proportions which shall be determined by the French 
Government, to be paid at either place : the principal 
of the said stock to be reimbursed at the Treasury 
of the United States, in annual payments of not less 
than three millions of dollars each ; of which the 
first payment shall commence fifteen years after the 
date of the exchange of ratifications : this stock shall 
be transferred to the Government of France, or to such 
person or persons as shall be authorized to receive it, 
in three months, at most, after the exchange of the 
ratifications of this treaty, and after Louisiana shall 
be taken possession of in the name of the Govern- 
ment of the United States. 

It is further agreed that, if the French Govern- 
ment should be desirous of disposing of the said 
stock, to receive the capital in Europe at shorter 
terms, that its measures, for that purpose, shall be 
taken so as to favor, in the greatest degree possible, 
the credit of the United States, and to raise to the 
highest price the said stock. 

Art. 3. It is agreed that the dollar of the United 
States, specified in the present convention, shall be 



APPENDIX I 295 

fixed at five francs 3333-lOOOOtlis or five livres eight 
sous tounioise. 

The present convention shall be ratified in good 
and true form, and the ratifications shall be exchanged 
in the space of six months, to date from this day, or 
sooner if possible. 

In faith of which, the respective Plenipotentiaries 
have signed the above articles, both in the French 
and English languages, declaring, nevertheless, that 
the present treaty has been originally agreed on and 
written in the French language, to which they have 
hereunto affixed their seals. 

Done at Paris, the tenth day of Floreal, eleventh 
year of the French Eepublic, (30th April, 1803.) 

Robert R. Livingston, 
James Monroe, 
Barbe Marbois. 



APPENDIX II 

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE TO-DAY 

Its vast area. Statistical summary i of the states and territories 
formed from the Purchase. Fifteen millions of people. Wealth 
four hundred times the purchase money. The empire which 
we gained. 

Figures are dry, but they can be helped by com- 
parisons. The Louisiana Purchase contains 863,072 
square miles, or 565,166,080 acres. This means an 
area more than seven times that of Great Britain and 
Ireland, and more than four times that of Germany. 
The Purchase is larger than Great Britain, Germany, 
France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal combined. 



LOUISIANA 

This was the first state formed within Louisiana 
territory. 

I. Area 

45,420 square miles. 

1 From the Reports of the 12th Census and Yearbooks of 
the Department of Agriculture, except where otherwise stated. 
The 1900 census figures for agriculture are for the year 1899. 

296 



APPENDIX II 297 

II. Population 

Louisiana (1900)1,381,625. New Orleans (1900)287,104. 
(1810) 76,556. 
(1803) 49,475. (1803) 8,056. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Louisiana is chiefly an agricultural state, the leading 
products being cotton, sugar, and rice. In the world's 
production of sugar the state holds third place, being 
led only by Cuba and Java. Sugar culture was intro- 
duced into Louisiana by the Jesuits in 1751. The phe- 
nomenal development of the rice industry in southwest 
Louisiana by means of irrigation has caused the con- 
struction of hundreds of miles of irrigating canals 
and the application of irrigation to more than one hun- 
dred thousand acres of prairie land which a few years 
ago had but a nominal value. These lands are now 
classed among the most valuable in the state. 

In recent years manufactures, which were formerly 
practically neglected on account of the unfitness of 
slave labor for that form of production, have made 
considerable headway. In the years between 1850 and 
1900, while the total population increased 166.8%, 
that portion of it dependent upon the manufacturing 
industries increased 579.9%. 

In 1900 the value of manufactured products was 
$121,181,68,3, and the value of real and personal 
property was $189,099,050 ; the value of farm prod- 
ucts was $72,667,302 in 1899, as against $54,343,- 
953 in 1890 and $42,883,522 in 1880. 



298 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



The most important industries are sugar refining, 
lumbering, and the manufacture of cotton-seed oil and 
cake. An interesting feature of the sugar refining 
has been the establishment of large central refineries 
thoroughly equipped with the most efiicient modern 
machinery. The planters, who used to do their own 
refining, now sell their raw produce to the refineries 
and are spared the cost of the installation and main- 
tenance of refining machinery. 



lY. Products 

Cotton (1000) 709,041 commercial bales (about 500 lbs.). 
Value 823,523,143. 

(1890) 059,180 commercial bales. 

(1880) 508,569 
Lumber (1900) value of product ^17,408,513. 

(1890) '^ " " 5,745,194. 

(1880) " " " 1,764,644. 

Timber cut in 1900, 1,214,387 (:\r feet, B. M.). 
Rice 



(1900) 172,732,430 lbs. 
(1890) 75,645,433 " 
(1880) 23,188,311 " 

Cane (1900) 3,137,388 tons. 

Sus^ar (1900) 319,166,396 lbs. 

(1890) 292,124,050 " 
(1880) 171,706,000 " 

Syrup and molasses 

(1900) 14,184,733 gals. 
(1890) 14,341,081 " 
(1880) 11,696,248 " 



Value $14,044,489. 



Farm value $14,627,282. 
Value $13,099,559. 



Value $1,842,226. 



APPENDIX II 299 

Corn (1900) 22,062,580 bii. Value $10,327,723. 

(1890) 13,081,954 " 
(1880) 72,852,263 " 

Tobacco (1900) 102,100 lbs. Value $20,488. 
(1890) 46,845 " 
(1880) 55,934 « 

Sheep (1900) 169,234. 

(1890) 186,167. 
(1880) 135,631. 

Wool (1900) 547,641 lbs. Value $90,317. 

(1890) 440,686 " 
(1880) 406,678 " 

V. Historical Events 

1803. Napoleon sold the province of Louisiana to the 

United States. 

1804. New Orleans was incorporated. 

1807. Orleans territory was divided into nineteen parishes 

or counties. 
1812. Louisiana was admitted to the Union, and that part 

of West Florida lying west of Pearl River was 

added to the new state. 
1812. The first steamboat on the Mississippi arrived at 

New Orleans. 
1815. The battle of New Orleans. Jackson defeated the 

British. 
1831. The first railroad was opened in the state. It was 

four and a half miles long. 
1861. Louisiana seceded from the Union. 
1868. Louisiana was restored to the L^nion. 



300 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

1879. James B. Eads completed his jetties in the South 

Pass, which opened the mouth of the Mississippi 
to vessels of the heaviest draught, 

1880. Bureau of Agriculture and Immigration established. 
1884. World's Industrial Cotton Exposition at New Orleans. 
1890. Overflow of Mississippi River causes loss of $1,213,- 

040. 
1902. East Louisiana and Southern Louisiana railways 
established. Total number of miles in state, 
2,898. 

ARKANSAS 

The name has been attributed to a compound of 
French and Indian words meaning " Bow of smoky 
water/' and refers to the Arkansas River. 

I. Area 
53,850 square miles. 

II. Population 

(1900) 1,311,564. 
(1820) 14,255. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Arkansas is an agricultural state, but manufactures 
are rapidly increasing. The principal products are 
cotton, cereals, and tobacco. Fruit growing is very 
successful, and the state is famous for its apples. 



APPENDIX II 301 

Arkansas is rated as one of the four states or terri- 
tories having the greatest comparative gains in coal 
production in the past decade. Building stone is abun- 
dant, and a great deposit of liquid asphalt has been 
opened in Pike County. Beneath it has been found 
a stratum of fuller's earth. Some three thousand 
people are engaged in the pearl industry near Newport. 
There are also great zinc deposits in the state. 

The manufactures of lumber and timber products are 
by far the most important. There are 1199 establish- 
ments, representing a capital of $21,727,710, which 
in 1900 gave employment to 15,895 wage earners, or 
sixty per cent of the wage earners of the entire state. 
The value of their product was $23,959,983, or fifty- 
three per cent of the value of all the products of Arkan- 
sas. The flour and grist milling industry ranks second, 
the manufacture of cotton-seed oil and cake ranks 
third, and cotton ginning is of fourth importance. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $79,649,- 
490, as compared with $53,128,155 in 1890 and $43,- 
796,261 in 1880. 

The value of real and personal property for 1900 
was $189,999,050. The value of manufactured prod- 
ucts for 1900 was $45,197,731. 

IV. Products 

Cotton (1900) 709,880 commercial bales. Value |24,- 

671,445. 
(1890) 691,494 " « 

(1880) 608,256 • " " 



302 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



Corn (1900) 

(1890) 
(1880) 

Wheat (1900) 

(1890) 
(1880) 

Oats (1900) 

(1890) 
(1880) 

Hay and forage 

(1900) 
(1890) 
(1880) 

Live stock (1900) 
(1890) 
(1880) 

Sheep (1900) 

(1890) 
(1880) 

Wool (1900) 

(1890) 
(1880) 

Milk (1900) 

(1890) 

Tobacco (1900) 
(1890) 
(1880) 

Timber cut (1900) 

Lumber (1900) 



44,144,098 bu. Value $17,572,170. 
33,982,318 " 
24,156,417 " 

2,449,970 bu. Value 11,383,916. 

955,668 " 
1,269,715 " 

3,909,000 bu. Value $1,263,101. 

4,180,877 " 
2,219,822 " 

271,616 tons. Value $1,913,163. 
164,399 " 
20,630 " 

value 137,483,771. 
30,772,880. 
20,472,425. 

168,761. 
243,999. 
246,757. 

636,474 lbs. Value $11 8,922. 
512,396 " 
557,368 " 

109,861,393 gals. Value of dairy prod- 
ucts $6,912,459. 
54,325,673 gals. 

831,700 lbs. Value $85,395. 
954,790 " 
970,220 " 

1,665,158 (Mfeet, B. M.). 

value of product $23,957,983. 



APPENDIX II 303 

Lumber (1890) value of product $8,943,052. 

(1880) " '' " 1,793,848. 

Coali (1899) 843,554 short tons. Value |989,383. 

Flouring and grist mills 

(1900) value of product $3,708,709. 

(1890) " " " 2,498,168. 

V. Historical Events 

1670. Arkansas was first settled by the French, near St. 

Francis River. 
1812. Louisiana became a state, and Arkansas was included 

in Missouri territory. 
1819. Organized as Arkansas territory. 
1836. Organized as a state, Indian Territory being cut off. 
1861. Seceded from the LTnion. 
1868. Readmitted as a state. 
1892. High-grade silver and lead ores were discovered about 

fifteen miles from Little Rock. 
1898. Federal debt settled. 
1902. 1,694 militia, regularly organized, uniformed, and in 

actual service of the state. 



COLORADO 

The Spanish gave the name of Colorado, which 
means ruddy or red, to the Colorado River. It is 
frequently called the " Centennial State," because it 

1 International Yearbook (1000). Census Report on Mineral 
Industries not issued. The product for 1890 is not representa- 
tive, the production having been interfered with by serious 
strikes. 



304 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

was admitted in 1876. The country was partially 
explored by Pike in 1807 and by Long in 1820. 
The discovery of gold brought a small army of treas- 
ure seekers to Pike's Peak and the surrounding coun- 
try in 1859, and this began to draw the attention of 
the world to Colorado's vast mineral resources. 

I. Area 
103,645 square miles. 

II. Population 

Colorado (1900) 539,700. Denver (1900) 133,859. 
(1880) 194,327. (1880) 35,029. 

(1860) 34,277. (I860) 4,749. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Irrigation holds an important relation to Colorado 
agriculture ; the soil is rich, but needs water to make 
it fruitful. Cereals and fruit are the chief agricul- 
tural products. Stock raising is an important occu- 
pation, but mining is the leading industry ; gold, 
silver, lead, copper, and coal are produced in abun- 
dance. The state produces more than one third of 
the yearly output of silver in the United States. 

The acreage irrigated in 1900 was 1,611,271. 

The value of irrigated crops for 1900 was $15,- 
100,690. 

The acreage of improved land under cultivation in 
1900 was about 2,000,000. 



APPENDIX II 305 

1900. Value of farm products was $33,048,576. 
1890. " « " " " 13,136,810. 

1880. " " " " " 5,035,228. 

The value of all manufactured products for 1900 was 
$102,830,137. 

IV. Products 

Gold (1900) 71,396 fine ounces. Value $79,000,000. 

Silver (1900) 728,334 fine ounces. 

Lead (1900) 82,137 short tons. Value $49,937,006. 

Copper (1900) 8,000,000 lbs. Value $3,893,034. 

Iron and steel 

(1900) manufactured product 232,815 tons. 
(1890) " " 30,207 " 

(1880) " « 4,018 " 

Coal (1900) 4,626,943 tons. 

(1880) 462,747 " 

Coke (1900) 503,543 tons. 

(1890) 199,638 " 
(1880) 18,000 " 

Wheat (1900) 5,587,770 bu. Value $2,809,370. 
(1890) 2,845,439 " 
(1880) 1,425,014 " 

Corn (1900) 1,275,680 bu. Value $508,488. 

(1890) 1,511,907 " 
(1880) 455,968 " 

Oats (1900) 3,080,130 bu. Value $1,121,745. 

Sheep (1900) 1,352,823. 

(1890) 896,810. 

(1880) 1,091,443. 



306 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Wool (1900) 8,543,937 lbs. Value 11,115,331. 
(1890) 4,544,332 " 
(1880) 3,197,391 " 

Hay and forage 

(1900) 1,643,347 tons. Value $8,159,279. 
(1890) 714,555 " 

(1880) 86,562 " 

Live stock 

(1900) value $49,954,311. 

(1890) " 29,675,528. 

(1880) " 15,927,342. 
Dairy products (1900) value $3,778,901. 
Milk (1900) 38,440,111 gals. 

(1890J) 19,680,761 " 

V. Historical Events 

1852. Gold was discovered. 

1857. Civilized Cherokees attempted to explore Colorado 

but were driven back by hostile Indians. 

1858. Colorado explored at two points, — near Pike's Peak 

by a company from Kansas, and in the southwest 
by Georgians under Baker. Both found gold. 

1859. Gold was discovered at Boulder Creek, Clear Creek, 

and Leadville. There were in the same year 
important discoveries of silver. The great dis- 
coveries of carbonate-silver ore at Leadville did 
not come until 1877. 

1861. The territory was formed from parts of Utah, New 
Mexico, Kansas, and Nebraska. 

1876. Colorado was admitted to the Union. 



APPENDIX II 307 

1878. Gold and silver production to date : 80 tons pure 
gold, 770 tons silver ; and large quantities of copper 
and lead. 

1891. The first passenger train ascended Pike's Peak. 

1892. Pike's Peak set apart as a forest reserve. Gold found 

in large quantities in Squaw Gulch. 

1893. Rich gold ores, yielding at rate of $120,000 per ton, 

were found at Cripple Creek in El Paso County. 
1899. Southern Ute Indian lands opened to settlement. 
1901. Colorado first in beet-sugar industry. 



INDIAN TERRITORY 

A part of Indian Territory was included in the 
Purchase. 

I. Area 

31,000 square miles. 

II. Population 
(1900) 392,060. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Agriculture, grazing, and lumbering are the chief 
occupations. Indian corn and cotton are the princi- 
pal products. It is estimated that there are twenty 
thousand square miles of coal fields. Since 1890 the 
manufacture of cotton-seed oil and cake has become 
one of the most important industries. 



308 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

In 1900 the value of farm products was $27,672,- 
002, the value of manufactured products was $3,892,- 
181, and the value of real and personal property was 
$94,000,000. 



IV. Products 

Corn (1900) 30,709,420 bu. Value 86,999,018. 

Cotton (1900) 154,850 commercial bales. Value $4,- 
809,929. 

(1890) 34,115 

(1880) 17,000 
Oats (1900) 4,423,810 bu. Value $889,053. 

Wheat (1900) 2,203,780 bu. Value 81,121,259. 
Hay and forage (1900) 480,609 tons. Value $1, 13 9, 079. 
Tobacco (1900) 97,030 lbs. Value $10,284. 

Live stock (1900) value $41,378,695. 

(1890) " 5,976,729. 

(1880) " 10,499. 

Sheep (1900) 12,648. 

Wool (1900) 50,711 lbs. Value $7,499. 

Flouring and grist mills (1900) value of product $1,198,472. 
Timber cut in 1900, 15,000 (M feet, B. M.), 
Lumber (1900) value of product $199,879. 
CoaP (1899) 1,537,427 tons. Value $2,199,785. 

Coke (1900) 24,339 tons. 

1 International Yearbook. Increase of over ten per cent in 
spite of strikes. 



APPENDIX II 309 



V. Historical Events 

1832. Indian Territory, including Oklahoma, was set apart 
as an Indian reservation. 

1834. Definite reservations were assigned to the five civi- 
lized tribes. 

1838. The beginning of their gradual removal. 

1892. The reservations of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, 

having been ceded to the United States, were 
opened for white settlement. 

1893. The Cherokee strip was opened and incorporated 

with Oklahoma. 
1901. Opening of Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache reserva- 
tions to white settlers. 



IOWA 

The name Iowa means " across beyond," and it was 
given by the Indians to a district west of the Missis- 
sippi, which formed part of Michigan territory and 
afterward of Wisconsin, becoming later the territory 
of Iowa. 

I. Area 
55,475 square miles. 

II. Population 

(1900) 2,231,853. 
(1850) 192,214. 
(1840) 43,112. 



310 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Iowa is one of the leading agricultural states, less 
than one per cent of the soil being unfit for culti- 
vation. Meat packing, the factory manufacture of 
butter, cheese, and condensed milk, and flour milling 
are the principal manufactures. Coal is found under 
about one third of the state. An industry peculiar 
to Iowa is the manufacture of pearl buttons from the 
shells of fresh-water mussels found along the Missis- 
sippi and other rivers. The manufacture of lumber 
and timber products, which was once important, has 
now declined. 

The value of all farm products for 1900 was $365,- 
411,528, as compared with $159,347,844 in 1890 and 
$136,103,473 in 1880. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$164,617,877. 

The value of real and personal property for 1900 
was $2,106,615,620. 



IV. Products 

Live stock 

(1900) value $278,830,096. 
(1890) " 206,436,242. 
(1880) " 124,715,103. 

Corn (1900) 383,453,190 bu. Value $97,297,707. 

(1890) 313,130,782 " 
(1880) 275,014,247 " 



APPENDIX II 



311 



Oats (1900) 168,364,170 bu. Value 133,254,987. 

(1890) 146,679,289 " 
(1880) 50,610,591 " 

Wheat (1900) 22,769,440 bu. Value $11,457,808. 
(1890) 8,249,786 " 
(1880) 31,154,205 " 

Potatoes (1900) 17,305,919 bu. Value |3,870,746. 
(1890) 18,068,311 " 
(1880) 9,962,537 " 

Milk (1900) 535,872,240 gals. Value of dairy products 

$27,516,870. 
(1890) 486,961,411 gals. 

Hay and forage 

(1900) 6,600,169 tons. Value $30,042,246. 
(1890) 7,264,700 " 
(1880) 3,613,941 " 

Sheep (1900) 657,868. 
(1890) 547,394. 
(1880) 455,359. 

Wool (1900) 5,015,965 lbs. Value $992,334. 
(1890) 2,649,652 " 
(1880) 2,971,975 " 

CoaP (1900) 4,645,481 tons. 

(1899) 5,177,479 " Value $6,397,338. 
(1880) 1,442,333 " 

Slaughtering and meat packing 

(1900) value of product $25,695,044. 
(1890) " " *' 23,425,576. 

1 Statistical Abstract, 12th Census. Value of output in 1899 
was the largest in the history of the state. 



312 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

Flouring and grist mills 

(1900) value of product $13,823,083. 
(1890) " '' " 11,833,737. 

V. Historical Events 

1833. The first permanent settlements were made at 

Dubuque, Fort Madison, and Burlington. 
1838. Territory of Iowa organized. 
1846. Iowa was admitted to statehood. 

1855. The first railway was built in Iowa. 

1856. The first locomotive to cross the Mississippi passed 

over the first railroad bridge across the river, 
between Rock Island and Davenport. 

1857. The Spirit Lake massacre occurred, which greatly 

retarded the development of the state in the region 
of Okoboji and Spirit Lake. 

1870. Geological Survey of State published. 

1871. Corner stone for State Capitol laid at Des Moines. 
1877. Canal around the Des Moines rapids opened. Length, 

7i miles; cost, $4,500,000. 
1890. A rich lead mine discovered near Dubuque. 

KANSAS 

The first white men to enter the present limits of 
Kansas were Coronado and other Spanish adelantados. 
In 1804 Lewis and Clark, the American explorers, 
kept the Fourth of July on Independence Creek, 
near the site of the present city of Atchison. Three 
years later Zebulon Pike crossed Kansas to Colorado 
and discovered Pike's Peak. 



APPENDIX II 313 

The bloody conflict to keep Kansas a free state 
and to exclude slavery forms a thrilling chapter in 
our national history. 

I. Area 
81,700 square miles. 

11. Population 

(1900) 1,470,495. 
(I860) 107,206. 
(1854) about 8,000. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Agriculture and grazing are the leading pursuits. 
The state is among the first in the production of 
wheat and corn. Tobacco, castor beans, and cotton 
are also important staples. Silk culture is becoming 
a notable industry. Horticulture is being success- 
fully developed, and in 1900 there were over eleven 
million apple trees in the state. The chief industries 
are meat packing, flour milling, and car construction. 
Zinc is mined in large quantities, and coal underlies 
about a fifth of the state. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $209,865,- 
542, as against $95,070,080 in 1890 and $52,240,361 
in 1880. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$172,129,898, and the value of real and personal prop- 
erty was $1,021,833,294. 



314 



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 





TV. Products 


Corn 


(1900) 229,937,430 bu. Value $58,079,738. 




(1890) 259,574,568 " 




(1880) 105,729,325 " 


Wheat 


(1900) 38,778,450 bu. Value 119,132,455. 




(1890) 30,399,871 " 




(1880) 17,324,141 " 


Oats 


(1900) 24,469,980 bu. Value $4,915,896. 




(1890) 44,629,034 " 




(1880) 8,180,385 « 


Potatoes 


(1900) 8,091,745 bu. Value $2,485,800. 




(1890) 8,242,953 " 




(1880) 2,894,198 " 


Milk 


(1900) 244,909,123 gals. Value of dairy prod 




ucts .$11,782,902. 




(1890) 201,608,099 gals. 


Hay and forage 




(1900) 7,066,671 tons. Value $18,499,287. 




(1890) 4,854,960 " 




(1880) 1,601,932 " 


Sheep 


(1900) 179,907. 




(1890) 401,192. 




(1880) 629,671. 


Wool 


(1900) 1,599,374 lbs. Value $247,895. 




(1890) 2,253,240 " 




(1880) 2,855,832 " 


Live stock 




(1900) value $190,956,936. 




(1890) " 128,068,305. 




(1880) " 62,704,149. 



APPENDIX II 315 

Slaughtering and meat packing 

(1900) value of product $77,411,883. 
(1890) " " " 44,696,077. 

Flouring and grist mills 

(1900) value of product $21,926,768. 
(1890) " " " 17,420,475. 

CoaP (1900) 3,989,170 tons. Value $4,478,112. 
(1880) 763,597 " 

Zinc (1900) value of product $5,790,144. 



V. Historical Events 

1820. The first white settlements of any importance were 
made by Osage missionaries. 

1854. The territory was organized. 

1861. After prolonged conflict between the free-soil and 
proslavery parties, Kansas was admitted to the 
Union. In the same year the first overland stage- 
coach arrived at Leavenworth, seventeen days 
from San Francisco. 

1874. Mennonites purchase 100,000 acres of railroad lands. 

1877. Lead discovered in Cherokee County. 

1889. Legislature appropriates $13,000 to encourage silk 
industry. 

1898. Lands taken from Indians by United States restored 
by United States Supreme Court. Value $1,250,- 
000. 

1902. 652 rural free-delivery routes in operation. 

1 International Yearbook. 



316 LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

MINNESOTA 

Th.e name means " cloudy water." About one third 
of Minnesota was not included in the Purchase. 
It is known as the " Gopher State." 

I. Area 
79,205 square miles. 

II. Population 

(1900) 1,751,394. 
(1860) 172,023. 
(1850) 6,077. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Two thirds of the state are devoted to agricul- 
ture. Horticulture is an important industry, as is 
also stock raising. Flour and grist milling, lumber- 
ing, meat packing, and brewing are the most impor- 
tant occupations. Building stone is abundant, and 
Minnesota is at the head of the list for the production 
of iron ore. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $161,217,- 
304, as against $71,238,280 in 1890 and $49,468,591 
in 1880. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$262,655,881, and of real and personal property 
$585,083,328. 



APPENDIX II 



317 







IV. Products 


Wheat 


[1900; 


) 95,278,660 bu. 


Value 150,601,948. 




[1890;; 


52,300,297 " 






[1880; 


I 34,601,030 " 




Oats ( 


[1900; 


\ 74,054,150 bu. 


Value $15,829,804. 




:i89o; 


1 49,958,791 " 






[1880^ 


) 23,382,158 " 




Corn 


[1900^ 

< > 


) 47,256,920 bu. 


Value $11,337,105. 




[1890; 


1 24,696,446 " 






[1880; 


1 14,831,741 " 




Potatoes 


(1900 


) 14,463,327 bu. 


Value $3,408,997. 




[1890^ 
< > 


) 11,155,707 '' 






[1880^ 


I 5,184,676 " 




Hay and f 


orage 








[1900; 


) 4,339,328 tons. 


Value $14,585,281. 




(1890^ 


) 3,135,241 " 






(1880 


) 1,637,109 " 




Milk 


[1900^ 


1 304,017,106 gals 
$16,623,460. 


. Value of dairy products 




(1890; 


) 182,968,973 gals 


5. 


Sheep 


(1900; 


) 359,328. 






(1890; 


) 399,049. 






(1880; 


) 267,598. 




Wool 


(1900 


) 2,612,737 lbs. 


Value $460,305. 




(1890; 


) 1,945,249 " 






(1880; 


) 1,352,124 " 




Live stock 










(1900 


) value $89,063,097. 




(1890' 


) " 57,725,683. 




(1880; 


) " 31,904,821. 



318 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Flouring and grist mills 

(1900) value of product $83,877,709. 
(1890) " " " 60,158,088. 

Timber cut (1900) 2,441,198 (M f eet, B. M.). 

Lumber (1900) value of product $43,585,161. 
(1890) " " " 25,075,132. 
(1880) " " " 7,366,038. 

Iron ore (1900) 8,000,000 tons. 

Iron and steel 

(1900) manufactured product 42,528 tons. 
(1890) " " 2,290 " 

V. Historical Events. 

1680. The Falls of St. Anthony were discovered and 
named by Father Hennepin, the most important 
of the early explorers of the state. 

1783. The part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi 
became United States territory by treaty, and 
was included in the Northwest Territory organ- 
ized under the ordinance of 1787. It was later 
part of Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin terri- 
tories successively. 

1803. The lands west of the Mississippi came into pos- 
session of the United States by the Louisiana 
Purchase, and belonged successively to the terri- 
tories of upper Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, 
and Iowa. 

1805. The expedition of Zebulon Pike furnished the first 
information as to climate, soil, and natural 
resources. 



APPENDIX II 319 

1818. Fort Snelling was founded. 

1821. The first manufactory in Minnesota, a sawmill at 
Fort Snelling, was established. 

1827. The first white settlers, Swiss refugees, appeared at 
Fort Snelling, and were allowed to cultivate lands 
belonging to the fort. 

1849. Minnesota was organized as a territory. 

1851. Twenty -one million acres of land were acquired 
from the Dakotas by treaty with Traverse, the 
Sioux. 

1858. The territory was admitted as a state. 

1860. At about this time a French millwright, M. N. 
La Croix, settled Faribault, and introduced the 
new process of flour milling which has since 
caused the prosperity of Minneapolis and spread 
over the United States. After its adoption large 
exports of flour were made from the United States, 
whereas previous exports had been in the form 
of grain. 

1870. Northern Pacific Railroad begun. 

1883. Completion of Northern Pacific Railroad. 

1898. Outbreak of Indians at Bear Lake. 

1902. Land values increased in a year from |5.76 to $9.78. 



320 louisia:^a puechase 

missouei 

This name formed two Indian words meaning ^' big 
muddy," and referred to the Missouri River. 

I. Area 

68,735 square miles. 

II. Population 

Missouri (1900) 3,106,665. St. Louis (1900) 575,238. 
(1820) 66,587. 
(1810) 20,845. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

The principal agricultural productions are cereals, 
tobacco, and fruit, horticulture being one of the most 
profitable occupations in the state. Stock raising 
and dairy farming are also extensively followed. 
The state has a vast wealth in manufacturing busi- 
ness, being one of the largest manufacturing centers 
of the country and holding the first place for tobacco 
manufacture. Meat packing, flour milling, and brew- 
ing are the leading industries. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $219,296,- 
970, as against $109,751,024 in 1890 and $95,912,- 
660 in 1880. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$385,492,784, and that of real and personal property 
was $1,093,091,264. 



APPENDIX II 321 



IV. Products 

Corn (1900) 208,844,870 bu. Value $61,246,305. 

(1890) 196,999,016 " 
(1880) 202,214,413 " 

Wheat (1900) 23,072,768 bu. Value 113,520,012. 
(1890) 30,113,821 " 
(1880) 24,966,627 " 

Hay and forage 

(1900) 4,062,199 tons. Value $20,467,501. 
(1890) 3,135,241 " 
(1880) 1,083,929 " 

Milk (1900) 258,207,755 gals. Value of dairy products 

$15,042,360. 
(1890) 193,931,103 gals. 

Sheep (1900) 663,703. 
(1890) 950,562. 
(1880) 1,411,298. 

Wool (1900) 4,145,137 lbs. Value $822,871. 
(1890) 4,040,084 " 
(1880)7,313,924 " 

Live stock 

(1900) value $160,540,004. 
(1890) " 138,701,173. 
(1880) " 95,785,282. 

Timber cut (1900) 721,632 (M feet, B. M.). 

Lumber (1900) value of product $11,177,529. 
(1880) " " " 5,265,617. 



322 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Tobacco 1 (1900) 3,041,996 lbs. Value $218,991. 

(1890) 9,424,823 " 

(1880) 12,015,657 " 
Slaughtering and meat packing 

(1900) value of product $43,040,885. 

(1890) " " " 18,320,193. 

Flouring and grist mills 

(1900) value of product $26,393,928. 
(1890) " '^ " 34,468,765. 

Coal (1900) 3,160,806 tons. 

(1880) 543,990 " 
Iron and steel 

(1900) product of manufactures 100,001 tons. 

(1890) " " " 114,945 " 

(1880) " " " 112,284 " 

Lead (1900) value of product $3,852,435. 

Zinc (1900) value of product $2,011,724. 

V. Historical Events 

1767. Pierre Laclede founded a trading post on the river, 
and named it in honor of Louis XV. 

1775. St. Louis had become a well-known fur depot and 
trading station and had about eight hundred 
inhabitants. 

1804. Captain Stoddard of the United States army suc- 
ceeded the Spanish commandant at St. Louis, and 
the region was organized into the territory of 
Louisiana. St. Louis was made the capital. 

1 While the production of tobacco has greatly decreased, the 
manufacture has greatly increased. 



APPENDIX II 323 

1812. Louisiana became a state, and the name of the ter- 
ritory was changed to Missouri territory. 
1817. The beginning of the Missouri Compromise agitation. 
1817. The first steamboat arrived at St. Louis. 

1821. Missouri was admitted as a state to the Union. 

1822. St. Louis received a city charter. 

1852. The first railway in the state was opened, with 
thirty-eight miles of track. 

1873. Opening of tubular steel bridge across the Missis- 
sippi River at St. Louis, erected by J. B. Eads. 

1901-1902. Expenditure of |900,000 in buildings for 
public institutions. 

MONTANA 

The name is taken from the French word for 

mountain. 

I. Area 

145,310 square miles. 

II. Population 

(1900)243,329. 
(1864) about 11,000. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Agriculture is handicapped by need of irrigation/ 
the acreage under cultivation being 1,151,674, of 
which the acreage irrigated is 951,154. The value 

1 The greatly increased recognition of the importance of 
irrigation as shown in legislation, in appropriations, and in such 
action as the meeting of the Irrigation Congress in 1903, argues 
favorably for the increased utilization of Western lands. 



324 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



of irrigated crops in 1900 was $7,281,567. Wheat 
yields about thirty bushels to the acre. Stock raising 
is an important occupation, and the state is one of the 
first in sheep raising and the production of raw wool. 
The chief industry of the state, however, is mining. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $28,616,957, 
as against $6,273,415 in 1890 and $2,024,923 in 1880. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$57,075,824, and that of real and personal property 
was $153,441,154. 

IV. Products 



Oats (1900 

(1890 
(1880 

Wheat (1900 
(1890 
(1880 

Hay and forage 
(1900 
(1890 
(1880 

Sheep (1900 

(1890 
(1880 

Wool (1900 

(1890 
(1880 

Livestock (1900 
(1890 
(1880 



4,746,231 bu. Value $1,790,938. 
1,535,615 " 

900,915 " 
1,899,683 bu. Value 11,077,210. 

457,607 " 

469.688 " 

1,059,268 tons. Value $5,974,850. 

268.689 " 
62,709 " 

4,215,214. 
2,352,886. 
279,277. 
30,437,829 lbs. Value $5,136,658. 
12,177,467 " 
995,484 " 
value $52,161,833. 
33,266,752. 
9,170,554. 



APPENDIX II 325 

Copper (1900) value of product $36,387,063. 
Silver (1900) coinage value $21,786,874. 
Lead (1900) value of product $5,264,253. 
Gold (1900) value of product $4,819,156. 
Coal (1900) 1,483,728 tons. 
(1880) 224 " 

V. Historical Events 

1827. Trading post established on the Yellowstone River. 

1852. Gold was discovered. 

1861. Discoveries of gold. The growth of the state dates 

from this time. 
1864. Montana was organized as a territory distinct from 

Idaho territory, of which it had been a part. 
1880. The first railroad entered Montana. 
1892. The surplus lands of the Crow Indian reservation in 

southern Montana (about 1,800,000 acres) were 

opened to settlement. 

NEBRASKA 

The name, taken from two Indian words, means 
"shallow water." The state is often called the 
"Black Water State." 

I. Area 

76,840 square miles. 

11. Population 

(1900) 1,006,300. 
(1860) 28,841. 



326 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Nebraska is an agricultural state, and ranks among 
the first for corn production. The sugar beet is an 
important product, and horticulture is very successful, 
apples, plums, and peaches forming the principal crops. 
It is one of the chief stock-raising and meat-packing 
states. The principal manufactures are farm imple- 
ments, foundry products, flour milling, and sugar 
refining. The acreage of improved land in 1896 was 
18,091,936. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $162,696,- 
386, as against $66,837,617 in 1890 and $31,708,914 
in 1880. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$143,990,102, and that of real and personal property 
$171,747,593. 

IV. Products 

Corn (1900) 210,974,740 bu. Value $51,251,213. 

(1890) 215,895,996 " 

(1880) 65,450,135 " 
Wheat (1900) 24,801,900 bu. Value $13,145,007. 

(1890) 10,571,059 " 

(1880) 13,847,007 " 
Oats (1900) 58,007,140 bu. Value $11,333,393. 

(1890) 43,843,640 " 

(1880) 6,555,875 " 
Hay and forage 

(1900) 3,502,380 tons. Value $11,230,910. 

(1890) 3,115,398 « 

(1880) 786,722 " 



APPENDIX II 327 

Milk (1900) 190,477,911 gals. Value of dairy products 

$8,595,408. 
(1890) 144,768,263 gals. 

Sheep (1900) 335,950. 
(1890) 209,243. 
(1880) 247,453. 

Wool (1900) 2,788,839 lbs. Value $426,344. 
(1890) 791,534 " 
(1880) 1,282,656 " 

Live stock 

(1900) value $145,349,587. 
(1890) " 92,971,920. 

(1880) " 40,350,265. 



V. Historical Events 

1804. The Lewis and Clark expedition passed up the 
west bank of the Missouri. This was the first 
important expedition after the early Spanish and 
French explorers. 

1810. The first settlement was made at Bellevue. 

1849. The beginning of the great western movement of 
gold-hunters occurred, which incidentally estab- 
lished towns in Nebraska along the west bank of 
the Missouri. 

1854. Nebraska was organized as a territory. 

1867. The territory was admitted to statehood, the capital 
being removed from Omaha to Lincoln. 

1869. The Union Pacific Railroad w^as opened for traffic. 

1875. Present state constitution framed. 

1902. Coal discovered near Jamestown. 



328 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

NORTH DAKOTA 

The name Dakota was taken from the general name 
of the Sioux tribes, and signified " many united 
tribes." 

I. Area 
70,195 square miles. 

IT. Population 

(1900) 319,146. 
(1890) 182,719. 
(I860) 4,837. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Agriculture is the principal occupation, and wheat 
is cultivated very extensively, great wheat farms of 
20,000 acres being not uncommon. Horse and cattle 
raising is second in importance. The estimated area 
of grazing lands is 40,000,000 acres. The manufac- 
tures are for the most part domestic and local. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $64,252,- 
494, as against $21,264,938 in 1890 and $5,648,814 
in 1880.1 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$9,183,114, and that of real and personal property 
$143,000,000. 

1 Includes South Dakota. 



APPENDIX II 



329 







IV. Products 


Wheat 


(1900) 


59,888,810 bu. 


Value $31,733,763 




(1890) 


26,403,365 " 






(1880) 


1 2,830,289 " 




Oats 


(1900) 


22,125,331 bu. 


Value 85,852,615. 




(1890) 


5,733,129 " 




Corn 


(1900) 


1,284,870 bu. 


Value $397,278. 




(1890) 


178,729 " 






(1880) 


1 2,000,864 " 




Hay and f 


orage 








(1900) 


1,747,390 tons. 


Value $5,182,917. 




(1890) 


531,472 " 






(1880) 


1 308,036 " 




Sheep 


(1900) 


451,437. 






(1890) 


136,413. 






(1880) 


1 85,244. 




Wool 


(1900) 


3,030,478 lbs. 


Value $503,744. 




(1890) 


510,417 " 






(1880) 


1 157,025 " 




Live stock 










^900) 


value 142,430,491. 




(1890) 


18,787,2 


94. 




(1880) 


1 " 7,555,2 


74. 



V. Historical Events 

1804 to 1806. Lewis and Clark explored the Dakotas, win- 
tering near Bismarck, 1804-1805, 

1830. The first steamer ascended the Missouri River into 
the Dakotas. 

1 Includes South Dakota. 



330 LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 

1851. The first land was obtained from the Sioux Indians. 

1861. Dakota territory was organized. 

1889. North Dakota was admitted as a state. 

1892. The Turtle Indians cede all right and title to lands 

in the Devil's Lake District. 

1902. New military post established near Bismarck. 



OKLAHOMA 

In 1889 Oklahoma, up to that time an Indian 
reservation, was opened for settlement. From 1850, 
when as " No Man's Land " it was ceded to the United 
States, until its opening to white settlers, these unoc- 
cupied lands were the scene of perpetual struggle 
between the government troops sent to enforce the 
proclamations against settlement and organized bands 
of men determined upon taking up the lands. In 
1901, 3,000,000 acres of Indian lands were opened. 
They now contain a population estimated at 80,000. 
Three counties have been organized, and the county 
seats have populations of from 8,000 to 12,000. The 
property of the settlers in this new country is esti- 
mated to be worth $9,000,000, according to the 
county clerks, on a basis of one third to one fourth 
real value. This showing for two years illustrates 
the rapid development of the last of the available 
new lands of the West. The total population of 
Oklahoma (1903) is estimated at 550,000, and with 
the Indian Territory added there would be about 
1,100,000. The admission of these two territories 



APPENDIX II 



331 



into the Union as one or two states lies in the 
immediate future. 

I. Area 

38,830 square miles. 



II. Population 

(1900) 398,331. 
(1890) 61,834. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Agriculture, horticulture, and stock raising are the 
principal occupations, yet the increase in manufac- 
tures between 1890 and 1900 was more striking than 
that in any other state or territory. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $45,447,- 
744, as against $440,375 in 1890. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$7,083,938, and that of real and personal property 
$150,000,000. 



Corn 
Wheat 
Oats 
Cotton 



IV. Products 

(1900) 152,055,390 bu. Value $48,037,895. 
(1890) 234,315 " 

(1900) 18,124,520 bu. Value $8,989,416. 
(1890) 30,175 '' 

(1900) 5,087,930 bu. Value $1,079,862. 
(1890) 76,194 " 

(1900) 70,675 commercial bales. Value $2,217,119. 
(1890) 425 " « 



332 LOUISIANA PUECHASE 

Hay and forage 

(1900) 1,137,296 tons. Value $2,883,682. 
(1890) 40,473 " 

Sheep (1900) 48,535. 
(1890) 16,565. 

Wool (1900) 278,425 lbs. Value $37,750. 
(1890) 59,114 " 

Live stock 

(1900) value $54,829,568. 

(1890) " 3,206,270. 

(1880) " 876,000. 

Flouring and grist mills (1900) value of product $3,745,434. 

V. Historical Events 

1889. Oklahoma separated from Indian Territory and 

opened for settlement. 

1890. Oklahoma territory organized. 

1891. Cession of lands was made by Sac and Fox, Pot- 

tawattomie, Shawnee, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe 
Indians, which opened 300,000 more acres to white 
settlement. 
1900. The governor claimed that Oklahoma was entitled to 
admission as a state. 



APPENDIX II 333 

SOUTH DAKOTA 



This has been called the " Coyote State/ 



I. Area 

76,850 square miles. 

II. Population 

(1900) 410,570. 
(1890) 328,808. 

III. Agriculture and Manufactures 

Two thirds of the population are engaged in agri- 
cultural pursuits. Wheat, corn, and oats are the 
leading products, and stock raising is very profitable. 
Milling is an important industry, and the state is 
very rich in minerals, gold and silver leading. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $66,082,- 
419, as against $22,047,279 in 1890. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$12,213,239, and that of real and personal property 
$172,225,085. 

IV. Products 

Wheat (1900) 41,889,380 bu. Value $20,957,917. 

(1890) 16,541,138 " 
Corn (1900) 32,402,540 bu. Value $7,263,127. 

(1890) 13,152,008 " 



334 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



Hay and forage 

1900) 2,378,392 tons. Value ^5,954,229. 
1890) 1,541,524 " 

Oats ri900) 19,412,490 bu. Value $4,114,456. 

1890) 7,469,846 " 

Sheep (1900) 507,338. 
1890) 238,518. 

Wool a900) 3,426,945 lbs. Value $525,652. 
1890) 1,074,289 " 



Live stock 

Gold 

Silver 

Copper 



1900) value $65,173,432. 
1890) " 29,689,509. 

1900) 84,723 fine ounces. 

1900) 317,263 fine ounces. 

1900) contents of matte 2,175,549 lbs. 



V. Historical Events 

1857. The first settlement was made at Sioux Falls. 

1861. Dakota was organized as a territory. 

1872. The first railroad entered the state. 

1889. South Dakota was separated from North Dakota and 

admitted as a state. 

1890. The Sioux reservation, containing 9,000,000 acres, 

was opened to white settlers. 

1892, The Yankton Sioux ceded part of their reservation 

between the Choteau and Missouri rivers. 

1893. The state legislature passed an act to promote 

irrigation. 
1902. Oil discovered thirty miles from Sisseton. 



APPENDIX II 335 

WYOMING 

The name comes from an Indian word, and means 
" broad plain." 

I. Area 
97,575 square miles. 

II. Population 

(1900) 92,531. 
(1890) 60,705. 
(1868) 9,118. 

III. Agricultuke and Manufactures 

It is estimated that 12,000,000 acres can be made 
fit for cultivation by means of irrigation. The ele- 
vation of the state (average probably 6400 feet) also 
limits agricultural production, as cereals and other 
ordinary products of the section will not thrive 
above 7500 feet. Stock raising is the leading pur- 
suit. Mineral resources are still to a great extent 
undeveloped. There are about 13,000,000 acres of 
coal fields, and large oil districts. 

The acreage irrigated in 1900 was 605,878, and its 
value $2,886,949. 

The value of farm products for 1900 was $11,907,415, 
as against $2,241,590 in 1890 and $372,391 in 1880. 

The value of manufactured products for 1900 was 
$4,301,240, and that of real and personal property 
$37,892,303. 



336 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



(1900) 
(1890) 
(1880) 

Hay and forage 
(1900) 
(1890) 
(1880) 

Sheep (1900) 
(1890) 
(1880) 



IV. Products 

Oats (1900) 763,370 bu. Value $292,630. 

(1890) 388,505 " 
(1880) 22,512 " 

Wheat ri900^ 348,890 bu. Value $191,195. 

74,450 " 

4,674 " 

462,101 tons. Value $2,332,028. 
147,963 " 
23,516 " 

3,327,185. 
712,520. 
450,225. 

Wool (1900) 27,758,309 lbs. Value $4,036,227. 
(1890) 4,146,733 " 
(1880) 691,650 " 

Live stock 

(1900) value $39,145,877. 
(1890) " 18,785,301. 
(1880) " 9,182,107. 

Coal (1900) 3,584,466 tons. 

(1880) 589,595 " 

Coke (1900) 15,630 tons. 

Iron and steel 

(1900) manufactured product 9,422 tons. 
(1890) " " 8,308 " 

(1880) " " 8,741 « 



APPENDIX II 337 



V. Historical Evexts 

1841. The first emigrant train for Oregon and California 
crossed Wyoming. 

1867. Gold was discovered and Cheyenne city established. 

1868. Wyoming territory was organized from Dakota, 

Idaho, and Utah. 

1876. The battle of the Big Horn. 

1890. The territory was admitted into the Union as a state. 

1894. A rich gold strike is made in Dutch Tom Gulch. 

1902. Completion of the longest aerial tramway in the 
world, extending from Battle Creek to Grand 
Encampment, a distance of sixteen miles. 



338 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



The following table, based on the last census, sum- 
marizes the area, population, and taxable property of 
the states and territories of the Louisiana Purchase. 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE IN 1900 



STATES AND TERRITORIES 


Area 


POPI'LATION 


Wealth 


Arkansas 


53,850 


1,311,564 


$189,999,050 


Colorado . . . 






103,645 


539,700 


430,000,000 


Indian Territory 






31,000 


302,060 


94,000,000 


Iowa .... 






55,475 


2,231,853 


2,106,615,620 


Kansas . . . 






81,700 


1,740,495 


1,021,833,294 


Louisiana 






45,420 


1,381,625 


267,723,138 


Minnesota . 






79,205 


1,751,394 


585,083,328 


Missouri . . . 






68,735 


3,106,665 


1,093,091,264 


Montana . . . 






145,310 


243,329 


153,441,154 


Nebraska . 






76,840 


1,060,300 


171,747,593 


North Dakota . 






70,195 


319,146 


143,000,000 


South Dakota . 






76,850 


401,570 


172,225,085 


Oklahoma . 






38,830 


398,831 


150,000,000 


Wyoming 






97,575 


92,531 


37,892,303 


Total .... 


1.024,6.30 


14,887,063 


$6,616,651, 829 



The Louisiana territory, once ridiculed as for the 
most part a barren wilderness, now contains as many 
inhabitants as there were dollars paid to make the 
purchase. 

The figures of the table show that the wealth which 
is taxed is more than four times the amount of the 
original purchase money. More than this, the splen- 
did courage and energy shown in the development of 
the territory, and the quality of the citizens whom 
its opportunities have added to our country, represent 
a value which is beyond price. 



INDEX 



Air gun, 117. 

Alabama, 12. 

Allen, Paul, 109. 

American Fur Company, 223, 

227. 
American Philosophical 

Society raises funds for 

exploration of West, 100. 
Annapolis, N. S., 17. 
Antelope, 124. 

Arikara Indians, 127. 190, 229. 
Arkansas, 205, 242 ; statistics 

of, 300. 
Arkansas River, 27, 201, 203. 
Ashley, William H., 229. 
Astor, John Jacob, 223, 226. 
Astoria, 223, 227, 228, 229. 
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa 

Fe Railroad, 279. 

Baker's Bay, 159. 
Bannock City, 179. 
Barb^-Marbois, 71, 73, 77. 
Basel, Treaty of, 50. 
Baths, Indian, 1.54. 
Beacon Rock, 164. 
Bears, 133-135, 168, 182. 



339 



Beaver County, Missouri, 

179. 
Bent's Fort, 216. 
Biddle, Nicholas, 109. 
Bienville d'Iberville, 35. 
Big Belt Mountains, 143. 
Big Dry River, 135. 
Big Horn River, 181, 234. 
Big White, 186, 189. 
Biloxi, French colony at, 35. 
Bitter Root Mountains, 147. 

151. 
Blackbird, 117. 
Blount, Senator, 57. 
Bonaparte, Lucien and Joseph, 

protest against the cession, 

74. 
Bonneville, Captain, explora- 
tions of, 233. 
Brackenridge, H. M., 232. 
Bradbury, John. 232. 
"Brant" (wild geese), 132. 
Buffalo, 8, 129, 224, 263; 

great herds seen by Lewis 

and Clark, 182. 
"Bullion theory," 18. 
Burr's conspiracy. 93. 



340 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



Cabeza de Vaca, captivity of, 
among tlie Indians, G-9. 

California, 235, 236 ; trail, 220. 

Camp Disappointment, 173. 

Canadian River, 206. 

Canoes made from buffalo 
skins, 184. 

Canon City, 205. 

Carrington, Colonel Henry, 
249. 

Carver, Jonathan, attempts to 
cross the continent, 42. 

Catlin, George, 232. 

Cattle raising, 264. 

Cavelier, Robert. See La Salle. 

Central Pacific Railroad, 268. 

Chaboneau, interpreter to 
Lewis and Clark, 129, 188. 

Charlevoix, 32. 

Cheyenne Indians, 190. 

Chicago Ship Canal, 243. 

Chickasaw Bluffs, 12, 29. 

"Chisshetaw" Creek, 127. 

Chopunnish (Nez Perc^) 
Indians, 152, 168. 

Cibola, Seven Cities of, 9, 10. 

Civil War, importance of the 
Mississippi in, 274-276. 

Claiborne, William, 88, 89. 

Clark, Captain William: early 
life, 102 (note) ; appointed 
to joint command with Cap- 
tain Lewis, 101 ; offers to 
lead Mandans against Sioux, 
129; makes survey of Falls 
of the Missouri, 141; saves 



Indian woman from cloud- 
burst, 142; trades bis sword 
for a horse, 166; explores 
the Yellowstone, 178; grant 
of land to, 193; later life, 
193. 

Clark's River, 178. 

Clearwater River, 153, 155. 

Colbert (i.e. Mississippi) River, 
29. 

Coldwater Creek, 112, 192. 

Colonial acquisition, problems 
involved in, 80. 

Colorado, Pike in, 203 ; statis- 
tics of, 303. 

Colorado River, 235. 

Colter, John, 187. 

Columbia River, 44, 153, 155, 
228, 235; Gray's discovery 
of, 43. 

Company of the West, 36. 

Constitution of the United 
States and the Purchase, 80, 
82, 83. 

Cooke, Colonel St. George, 248. 

Coronado, Francisco Vasquez, 
search of, for Quivira, 10. 

Cortes, Hernando, 16. 

Cotton gin, 244. 

Council Bluffs, 117, 220. 

Council Grove, 216. 

Cow Creek, 138. 

Crozat, Antoine, obtains trad- 
ing privileges, 36. 

Cruzatte, 140, 176. 

Cut-bank River, 173. 



INDEX 



341 



Dakotas. See North and 
South Dakotas. 

Dalles of the Columbia, 165. 

Daumont de Saint Lusson, 
24. 

De Soto, Fernando, explora- 
tions of, 12-16 ; misses Coro- 
nado, 14. 

Docampo, 12. 

Dodge City, 216. 

Dog-flesh diet, Lewis and 
Clark's party on, 167. 

Drewyer (one of Lewis and 
Clark's men), 172. 

Du Bois River, 111. 

Echeloot Indians, 156. 

Elk hunting, 176. 

Erie Canal, opening of, affects 
commerce of the Missis- 
sippi, 244. 

Espiritu Santo, Rio de (the 
Mississippi), discovered by 
Pineda, 6. 

Estevanico, 10. 

Expansion of theUnited States, 
47, 48, 65, 81-84, 241-244, 
281-283. 

Farming, development of , 274, 
284. 

Federalists oppose the Pur- 
chase, 80. 

Fields (one of Lewis and 
Clark's men), 174. 

Fish catching, 118. 



Flat-headed Indians, 156. 

Florida, West, annexed to the 
United States, 79. 

Floridas, England contem- 
plates seizure of, 55 ; United 
States seeks to acquire, 69; 
not included by Spain in the 
cession to France, 69, 78. 

Floyd, Sergeant, 119. 

Forsyth, Colonel G. A., 249. 

Fort Bridger, 247. 

Fort Hall, 220, 247. 

Fort Kearny, 247, 249. 

Fort Laramie, 220, 247. 

Fort Leavenworth, 247, 274. 

Fort Smith, 221. 

Fort Vancouver, 231. 

Fort Walla- Walla, 231. 

Fox River, 26. 

France, cedes Louisiana to 
Spain, 40 ; endeavors to re- 
gain Louisiana, 54-56 ; suc- 
ceeds, 58, 59. 

Franklin on the control of the 
Mississippi, 65. 

Fremont, J. C, 234, 275. 

French exploration in Louisi- 
ana, 21-33. 

French settlement in Louisi- 
ana, 34-39. 

Fur trade, 39, 102, 221, 227. 

Fur traders, 112, 113, 130, 177, 
184, 191. 

Gallatin River, 144. 
Gasconade, 191. 



342 



LOUISIANA PUKCHASE 



Gass, Patrick, 119. 

Geese, manner of nesting, 132. 

Genet, E. C., French minister 
to United States, 55 ; foments 
trouble in the West, 56 ; re- 
called, 56. 

Georgia, 12. 

Godoy, Manuel, 51, 60. 

Gopher, 161. 

Grape Creek, 206. 

Gravelines, 191. 

Gray, Captain Robert, dis- 
covers the Columbia River, 
43. 

Gray's Bay, 159. 

Great Bend, Kansas, 203. 

Great Lakes a highway for 
exploration, 210. 

Great Platte River, 116. 

Great Salt Lake, 230, 235. 

Green Bay, 21, 26. 

Green River, 230, 233, 234. 

Hamilton, Alexander, urges 

acquisition of Floridas and 

Louisiana, 65. 
Heart River, 127. 
Hennepin, Father, 30. 
Horseflesh diet, Lewis and 

Clark's party on, 152. 
Horses round up a herd of 

buffalo, 181. 
Hubert, 31. 
Hudson Bay Company, 222, 

233. 
Humboldt River, 234. 



Hunt, William Price, expedi- 
tion of, 228. 

Iberville, Pierre Le Moyne d', 
31, 35. 

Idaho, gold found in, 259. 

Independence, Missouri, 218. 

Independence-Day celebration 
of Lewis and Clark, 178. 

Indian cookery, 168. 

Indian Territory, 1 1 ; statis- 
tics of, 307. 

Indian wars, 248. 

Indiana, 242. 

Indians, 154, 180, 183. 

Indians, Arikara, 127, 190, 229 ; 
Cheyenne, 190; Echeloot, 
156; Iowa, 113; Kansas, 
114; Mandan, 130; Minne- 
taree, 174, 185 ; Missouri, 
116, 118; Nez Percd, 152, 
178; Omaha, 118; Osage, 
113; Ottoe, 116, 118; Paw- 
nee, 116; Shoshone, 148; 
Sioux, 121; Skilloot, 166; 
Sokulk, 155 ; Teton Sioux, 
124, 190; Yankton Sioux, 
121, 122. 

Iowa, 309. 

Iowa Indians, 309. 

Jacmel, 62. 
Jamestown, Va., 17. 
Jefferson, Thomas : on control 

of the Mississippi, 65 ; 

elected President, 66; 



INDEX 



343 



appoints commissioners to 
purchase New Orleans, 69; 
considers the purchase of 
Louisiana unconstitutional, 
82 ; his accounts of Louisi- 
ana, 97, 98 ; urges Ledyard 
to cross the continent, 99 ; 
persuades Philosophical So- 
ciety to raise funds for ex- 
ploration of the West, 100 ; 
selects Lewis and Clark to 
command a government ex- 
pedition to the Pacific coast, 
lOL 

Jefferson River, 144, 179. 

Jerked beef, 114. 

Joliet, Louis, 25-27. 

Joutel, 30. 

Juan dePadilla (Fray), 11. 

Kansas, 11, 246, 271-273 ; sta- 
tistics of, 312. 

Kansas City, 218. 

Kansas Indians, 114. 

Kansas River, 114, 235. 

Kearny, Colonel Philip, 248. 

Kelley, Hall J., 230. 

Kentucky, 48. 

Kooskooskee (Clearwater) 
River, 153, 155, 167. 

La Charette, 191. 

LaclMe, Pierre, obtains trad- 
ing rights on Missouri, 38 ; 
founds St. Louis, 38. 

Lake Superior, 24, 32. 



Lake Winnipeg, 32. 

Land grants, 276-278. 

La Salle, Robert Cavelier, 
Sieur de : early life, 23 ; de- 
scends the Ohio, 23 ; jour- 
neys to mouih of the Mis- 
sissippi, 27 ; murdered at 
Matagorda Bay, 30. 

Laussat, 86, 88. 

La Verendrye family, 33, 34. 

Law, John, 36. 

Leadville, 205. 

Ledyard, James, 99. 

Lee, Jason and Daniel, 251. 

Leech Lake, 200. 

Lemhi River, 150. 

Le Moyne d' Iberville, 31, 35. 

Le Sueur, Pierre, 30. 

Lewis, Captain Meriwether : 
applies for first expedition, 
100; appointed to com- 
mand, 101 ; biography, 101 
(note) ; sees the Rocky 
Mountains, 138; chased by 
bears, 133, 141 ; narrow 
escapes, 139, 141, 175; fight 
with Minnetarees, 174; acci- 
dentally shot, 176; congres- 
sional grant of lands to, 193 ; 
later life, 193. 

Lewis and Clark: appointed 
to command of expedition, 
101 ; preparations, 106 ; com- 
position of the expedition, 
108 ; journals of the expe- 
dition, 109 ; start from the 



344 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



Wood Kiver, 111 ; the con- 
templated journey, 111 ; 
reach the Kansas River, 
114 ; reach the Great Platte, 
116 ; council with Pawnees, 
116; in South Dakota, 120; 
council with the Sioux, 121 ; 
trouble with the Tetons, 
124 ; enter the Arikara 
country, 126; reach the 
Mandan Indians, 127; leave 
the Mandans, 132; in Mon- 
tana, 135 ; reach the Mus- 
selshell River, 137 ; in sight 
of the Rocky Mountains, 
138; at Marias River, 139; 
at the Great Falls of the 
Missouri, 141 ; reach the 
Three Forks of the Missouri, 
144 ; ascend the Jefferson, 
146 ; at source of the Mis- 
souri, 147; cross the Rockies, 
147 ; among the Shoshonees, 
148; scarcity of food, 151; 
among the Nez Perc6 
Indians, 152; reach the 
Columbia, 155 ; on the 
shores of the Pacific, 158 ; 
begin the return journey, 
164 ; among the Skilloot 
Indians, 166 ; practice med- 
icine, 166, 170 ; scarcity of 
stores, 169 ; recross the Bit- 
ter Root Mountains, 171; 
party divided to explore 
Jefferson and Yellowstone 



rivers, 172 ; reunited at Lit- 
tle Knife River, 177 ; again 
among the Mandans, 185; 
fresh start for home, 189 ; 
reach St. Louis, 192. 

Lewis River, 150. 

Lewiston, 167. 

Little Knife River, 177. 

Little Manitou Creek, 113. 

Livingston, Robert R. : learns 
of the cession to France, 67 ; 
commissioner to negotiate 
for purchase of New Orleans 
and the Floridas, 69 ; his 
conversation with Talley- 
rand, 72 ; a signer of the 
Purchase treaty, 77. 

"Long Trail," 264. 

Louis XIV, sanctions Missis- 
sippi Colony, 35 ; grants 
trading privileges to Crozat, 
36. 

Louisiana : Spanish explo- 
ration in; French explora- 
tion in ; French settlement 
of; ceded to Spain, 40; 
England contemplates inva- 
sion of, in 1790, 55 ; in 1797, 
56 ; retrocession to France, 
58, 59 ; causes invoking 
American acquisition, 47- 
52 ; dangers from French 
occupation, 54 ; Napoleon 
plans French occupation, 
59 ; his plans frustrated by 
Toussaint L'Ouverture, 63; 



[NDEX 



345 



he decides to sell Louisiana 
to the United States, 73 ; 
Talleyrand offers the terri- 
tory to Livingston, 72 ; 
treaty of cession signed, 77 ; 
text of treaty of cession, 
287 ; cost of the Purchase, 
79 ; how the news of the 
Purchase was received, 80 ; 
Constitutional questions 
raised, 82, 83 ; formal trans- 
fer to France, 86 ; formal 
transfer to the United 
States, 88 ; divided into 
Territory of Orleans and 
District of Louisiana, 90 ; 
form of temporary govern- 
ment of, 84 ; ignorance re- 
garding, at time of pur- 
chase, 97-99 ; influence of 
water ways on development 
of, 210 ; railroad as a factor 
of development, 280 ; statis- 
tics of the state, 297. 

Mackenzie, Alexander, 42, 
148. 

Mackinac island, 29. 

Mackinaw Company, 223. 

M'Neal, 172. 

Madison, James, on impor- 
tance of the Mississippi, 215. 

Madison River, 144, 179. 

Maha (Omaha) Indians, 118. 

Mandan Indians, 33. 

Marcos de Nizza, Fray, 9. 



Marias River, 139-140, 173. 

Marquette, Father, 25-27. 

Matagorda Bay, 30. 

Maximilian, Prince of Wied, 
232. 

Mendoza, Antonio de, 10. 

Meriwether's Bay, 100. 

Mexican War, 235, 245. 

Michaux, Andr^, 101. 

Michillimackinac, 29. 

Milk River, 135. 

Mills, Robert, 267. 

Mining in the Purchase, 257. 

Minnesota, 30, 274 ; statistics 
of, 316. 

Minnetaree Indians, 174, 185. 

Missionary explorers, 250- 
254. 

Mississippi Bubble, 36. 

Mississippi Company, 36. 

Mississippi River : discovered 
by Pineda, 6 ; reached by 
De Soto, 12 ; descended by 
La Salle, 27 ; Le Sueur's 
journey on, 30 ; explored by 
Joliet and Marquette, 25-27 ; 
known as river Colbert, 29; 
claims of European nations 
to valley of, 34 ; under 
Spanish control, 41 ; Span- 
ish settlements on, 52 ; 
Spanish authorities close 
navigation of, 51 ; impor- 
tance of, to the United 
States, 64-65, 215 ; Pike's 
search for head waters of, 



346 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



200 ; commerce affected by 
the Erie Canal, 244 ; in the 
Civil War, 274-276. 

Missoula County, Mont., 179. 

Missouri, 270 ; statistics of, 
320. 

Missouri Fur Company, 223. 

Missouri River: 211 ; Iberville 
and Hubert propose explo- 
ration of, 31 ; discovery of 
the Great Falls of, 140; 
Lewis at the head waters 
of, 147 ; Lewis and Clark's 
journey up the, 111-147. 

Moniteau Creek, 113. 

Monroe, James, commissioner 
for purchase of New Orleans 
and the Floridas, 69, 76. 

Montana, 257 ; statistics of, 
323. 

Morales, Spanish intendant at 
New Orleans, 68. 

Moreau Creek, 113. 

Mormons, 248. 

M0SC090, Luis de, 15. 

Mt. Hood, 155, 164. 

Mt. Jefferson, 164. 

Mt. Rainier, 164. 

Mt. Regnier, 164. 

Mt. St. Helens, 158, 164. 

Multnomah- River, 158, 164. 

Musselshell River, 137. 

Napoleon I, plans French 
occupation of Louisiana, 
60 ; the war in San Domingo 



frustrates his intention, 63 ; 
determines to sell Louisiana, 
73 ; quarrel with his broth- 
ers, 74 ; criticism of his action 
in regard to Louisiana, 75. 

Nebraska, 271, 273; statistics 
of, 325. 

Netul River, 160. 

Nevada, mining in, 257. 

New England Federalists op- 
pose the admission of Lou- 
isiana, 83. 

New Mexico, 10. 

New Orleans : founded, 35 ; 
description of, under Span- 
ish occupation, 53 ; Spanish 
customs regulations at, 50 ; 
American efforts to acquire, 
69 ; growth of, 245. 

New Orleans, battle of, 92. 

Nez Perc^ Indians, 152, 168. 

Nicollet, J. N.,232. 

Nicollet, Jean, 21. 

North Dakota, 328. 

Northern Pacific Railroad, 
278, 279. 

Northwest Fur Company, 223. 

Northwest territory, 244. 

Nuttall, Thomas, 232. 

Ohio, 242. 

Ohio River, 29, 210. 

Oil Creek, 205. 

Oklahoma, 330. 

Omaha Indians, 118. 

Ordway, Sergeant, 176, 179. 



INDEX 



347 



Oregon, 44, 233. 
Oregon trail, 218. 
Orleans territory, 90. 
Osage Indians, 113. 
Osage River, 112. 
Overland trail, 220. 

Pacific Fur Company, 227. 
Panama Railroad, 256. 
Parker, Samuel, 251. 
Pawnee Indians, 116. 
Pemmican, 125. 
Perdido River, 78. 
Pierre's Hole, Idaho, 231. 
Pike, Zebulon M., 199, 200- 

207. 
Pike's Peak, 203, 257. 
Pineda, Alonzo de, 6. 
Pioneer, the American, 49. 
Pipestone quarry, 119. 
Pitt, William, 55. 
Pizarro, Francisco de, IG. 
Platte River, 191, 233, 235. 
Plymouth, 17. 
"Pony express," 259-263. 
Poplar River, 135. 
Porcupine River, 135. 
Port Royal, 17. 
Powell, Captain James, 249. 
Prairie dog, 123. 
Pryor, Sergeant, 121, 180, 183. 
Pueblo, Col., 203. 

Quamash, 152. 

Quivira, legendary city of, 10. 

Quivira Indians, 11. 



Radisson, Pierre, 222. 

Railroads, transcontinental, 
266-269, 274, 278-280. 

Raton Pass, 216. 

Red River, 8, 15, 206. 

Right of deposit, 51, 52, 68. 

Rio Grande, 206. 

Rivers, influence of, on devel- 
opment of the Purchase, 210. 

Rocky Mountains, 34, 42, 138, 
144. 

Rocky Mountain Fur Com- 
pany, 223, 229. 

Rupert, Prince, 222. 

Sacajawea, 129, 132, 142, 145, 
149, 168, 179, 180, 188. 

St. Augustine, 17. 

St. Charles, Mo., 112, 192. 

St. Joseph, Mo., 220, 259. 

St. Louis, 38, 106, 192, 246, 
247, 223, 242, 243. 

St. Louis (or Ohio) River, 29. 

Saint Lusson, Daumont de, 24. 

Salmon, 148, 150, 154, 155. 

Salmon River, 150. 

San Domingo, French cam- 
paign in, 60-63. 

Sangre de Cristo Mountains, 
206. 

San Joaquin River, 234. 

Santa F^, N. M., 20. 

Santa F^ trail, 215. 

Seven cities of Cibola, 9, 10. 

Shahakas, 186. 

Shannon, 183. 



348 



LOUISIANA PUECHASE 



Shoshone Indians, 148. 

Sioux Indians, 121-126, 249. 

Skilloot Indians, 16G. 

Slavery, question of, within 
the Purchase, 270-274. 

Smet, Father de, 250. 

Snake River, 153, 155. 

Snakes, 113. 

Sokulk Indians, 155. 

Soldier, the, in the develop- 
ment of the West, 246-250. 

Soto, Fernando de, 12-16. 

South Dakota, 120, 333. 

South Pass, 233-235. 

South Platte, 205. 

Spain, acquires Louisiana, 40 ; 
retrocedes the territory to 
France, 58, 59, 67. 

Spanish American possessions 
at end of eighteenth cen- 
tury, 52. 

Spanish explorations vs^ithin 
the Purchase, 3-20. 

Spirit Mound, 120. 

Steamboats upon the Missis- 
sippi, 243. 

Sulphur springs in Montana, 
179. 

Sunflowers, 143. 

Sutter's Fort, 235. 

Talleyrand, endeavors to get 
Louisiana for France, 57 ; 
denies French acquisition of 
Louisiana, 67; seeks to limit 
American expansion, 59. 



Tennessee, 48. ► 

Teton Basin, 231. 

Teton Indians, 124, 190. 

Texas, 4, 8. 

Tonty, 29, 30. 

Toussaint L'Ouverture, 60-63. 

Townsend, J. K., 232. 

Trails, Santa Fe, 215; Oregon, 

218 ; Overland, 220. 
Trappers, 123. 
Traveler's Rest Creek, 178. 
Truckee River, 220. 

Union Pacific Railroad, 268- 

269, 278. 
United States, expansion of, 

47, 48, 65, 81-84, 241-244, 

281-283. 
Utah, 248, 257. 

Vaca, Cabeza de, 6-9. 
Vancouver, 43. 
Velasquez, Diego, 6. 
Violin playing, 166. 

Wabashas, 112. 

Waiilatpu (Walla Walla), 251. 

Walla Walla, 251. 

Washington on the control of 
the Mississippi, 65. 

Water ways, influence of, upon 
development of the West, 
210. 

Weahkoonut, 167. 

Western exploration, litera- 
ture of, 232, 237. 



INDEX 



349 



West Florida, 79. 

Western independence of East- 
ern capital, 284. 

Westport, Mo., 218. 

Whitman, Marcus, 251, 252. 

Whitney, Asa, 267. 

Wilkinson, General James, 88, 
94, 199, 201, 207. 

Willamette River, 158, 104. 

Wind River Mountains, 235. 

Windsor, 183. 

Wiunebago Indians, 22. 



Wisconsin River, 21,22,26,210. 
Wood (Du Bois) River, 111. 
Wooden houses among the 

Echeloot Indians, 15(5. 
Wyeth, Nathaniel J., 230. 
Wyoming, 335. 

Yankton Indians, 121, 122, 
Yellowstone River, 176, 181, 
230. 

Zuni Indians, 10. 






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